A thread to catalogue the eloquence, dignity, diplomacy and wisdom of Boris Johnson

[Le Baron]

Keep repeating that doesn't make it true. There is a serious labour shortage in the UK and in the care and health sectors this was the case even prior to the pandemic. There is an ageing population and a real shortage of younger people willing to do these jobs and you are deluding yourself if you think that pay is the only driver for this.

Some movement in that will help but only to the point that it doesn't prevent those jobs even appearing or make the cost of living deteriorate beyond the scope of the pay increases. The poorest paid are the first to feel those and the least able to sustain them. Giving additional pay that is immediately usurped by the cost of living increases is net loss.

You have an over-simplified view of this, it's always a balance between the availability, suitability and cost of labour if you want sustainable growth of an economy and adequate public services.

It simply is true, so repeating it is just repetition of a truth. If you don't care for that, it's just bad luck for you. My 'view' is based upon fact, not some guy wandering around town seeing vacancies in a job centre window. The official unemployment figures for people of working age 'available' for work are largely UNCHANGED over a 10 year period (excluding the pandemic which is unusual circumstances and made it higher). In fact they are about equal to 1970. So if Tom, Dick and Harry could muster a workforce over the last 10 years what happened? The loss of ex-EU workers is real, but as I clearly said before that represented an adjunct to the domestic labour force which is artificially kept in relatively high unemployment as a buffer and also because countries prefer to hire people they don't need to train and educate themselves.

Increasing real wages vs nominal wages is not a net loss (and is not even necessarily done by direct nominal wage increases). Government has a huge capacity to influence the cost of living. Free-marketeer devotees will never understand this important fact.

 

[SteveS1]

It simply is true, so repeating it is just repetition of a truth. If you don't care for that, it's just bad luck for you. My 'view' is based upon fact, not some guy wandering around town seeing vacancies in a job centre window. The official unemployment figures for people of working age 'available' for work are largely UNCHANGED over a 10 year period (excluding the pandemic which is unusual circumstances and made it higher). In fact they are about equal to 1970. So if Tom, Dick and Harry could muster a workforce over the last 10 years what happened? The loss of ex-EU workers is real, but as I clearly said before that represented an adjunct to the domestic labour force which is artificially kept in relatively high unemployment as a buffer and also because countries prefer to hire people they don't need to train and educate themselves.

Increasing real wages vs nominal wages is not a net loss (and is not even necessarily done by direct nominal wage increases). Government has a huge capacity to influence the cost of living. Free-marketeer devotees will never understand this important fact.

It's not at all true. Your use of zero-summing spurious numbers mean absolutely nothing regarding the availability, viability and suitability of labour. Employers like Steve do not drive themselves nuts with vexation for the fun of it and I speak as someone who has employed people and worked in a number of corporations and smaller businesses as employee or contact before ultimately owning a company. For all your scorn, the inability to recruit and the number of vacancies are very real measures of the availability and suitability of local labour.

Regarding your last paragraph, I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Increasing wages in an inflationary spiral is a net loss whichever way you slice it. The last time we had that here, wages did not keep pace never mind get ahead of it. I am not a free market devotee and fully understand Government's capacity to intervene and if you think this lot will do that, I suggest you look again.

 

[Seeker_UK]

Or rather 'willingness' to work for generally lower wages/conditions? The difference (which also exists in other EU countries, see Italy's leather goods industry) is that a e.g. eastern Europeans from the more recently elevated member states have been exploited to fill picking/packing jobs.

They haven't been exploited. They chose to come here under their own free will and, when it no longer made economic sense for them to work here, went to work elsewhere.

What is true, however, is that the UK has relied way too much on the availability of cheaper EU labour, made it unwelcome because of Brexit, bizarrely chose not to manage the risk of that happening and now wonders why the shortage exists.

 

[Le Baron]

No "zero-summing" involved. And the numbers aren't spurious. I also never said 'Steve' was deliberately doing that or that you are personally responsible for labour market (dis)organisation/unemployment. What I am actually saying is that any labour market problems are not physical 'shortages', but structural according to how the governments of 40 years have approached the issue of employment - also shared by many people who have voted for them. In the last instance this is a government responsibility because the private sector is credit-limited.

I never mentioned an inflationary spiral, you just did. Assuming that raising a wage floor (which automatically has an effect upon how the private sector prices labour costs) is equal to a wage-price spiral (or price-wage depending on who starts it) is simply erroneous. I don't mean that as a personal slight, it is a common perception.

 

[Le Baron]

They haven't been exploited. They chose to come here under their own free will and, when it no longer made economic sense for them to work here, went to work elsewhere.

Really? If you decided to go to England from a place where wages were chronically depressed or less work in general available, would you be fussy about the employment offering you the opportunity? Very doubtful. The meaning you thus give to the word "choice" is philosophically slippery. You're assuming a level of employment liberty which doesn't match reality. Freedom to work all over the place largely benefits professional workers, not bottom-end workers.[/QUOTE]

What is true, however, is that the UK has relied way too much on the availability of cheaper EU labour, made it unwelcome because of Brexit, bizarrely chose not to manage the risk of that happening and now wonders why the shortage exists.

I agree.

 

[SteveS1]

No "zero-summing" involved. And the numbers aren't spurious. I also never said 'Steve' was deliberately doing that or that you are personally responsible for labour market (dis)organisation/unemployment. What I am actually saying is that any labour market problems are not physical 'shortages', but structural according to how the governments of 40 years have approached the issue of employment - also shared by many people who have voted for them. In the last instance this is a government responsibility because the private sector is credit-limited.

I never mentioned an inflationary spiral, you just did. Assuming that raising a wage floor (which automatically has an effect upon how the private sector prices labour costs) is equal to a wage-price spiral (or price-wage depending on who starts it) is simply erroneous. I don't mean that as a personal slight, it is a common perception.

What do you do about the large number who believe this country had “moved on” from this type of work? Increased rates of pay won’t touch that. There were shortages of suitable labour even before EU workers went back which have of course been made much worse.

increase a wage floor has inflationary consequences, there is no doubt about that we have been there before. It can be managed but will not be by this lot we have already seen that. It will be the low income families that it hits hardest.

 

[Seeker_UK]

Really? If you decided to go to England from a place where wages were chronically depressed or less work in general available, would you be fussy about the employment offering you the opportunity? Very doubtful. The meaning you thus give to the word "choice" is philosophically slippery. You're assuming a level of employment liberty which doesn't match reality. Freedom to work all over the place largely benefits professional workers, not bottom-end workers.

So you're saying that a blue collar worker from an EU country didn't have the opportunity to pick a job in one of 27 countries (at least) to work and find a job that meets their needs and offered the best opportunities?

I think the EU may have a different view on that.

 

[Le Baron]

What do you do about the large number who believe this country had “moved on” from this type of work? Increased rates of pay won’t touch that. There were shortages of suitable labour even before EU workers went back which have of course been made much worse.

Let's just back up a minute before things get lost. I mentioned pay and increases in pay in relation to attracting workers, not that everyone should just universally raise wages right now (although the ordinary wage should be much higher). The thing you mention about having "moved on" from this work is a good point. Designating this work as low-end and paying it as low-end, has brought it about. As has the outsourcing of that work for those who have done it.

increase a wage floor has inflationary consequences, there is no doubt about that we have been there before. It can be managed but will not be by this lot we have already seen that. It will be the low income families that it hits hardest.

It does not automatically have inflationary consequences, this is a result of firms protecting profit margins, not a mathematical rule. The constant refrain that 'it will be low-income people hit the hardest' is a refrain used by the neolibs to justify no changes. I'm not calling you a neolib, but the idea has become a sort of factoid, when the variables around it are far more sophisticated.

 

[Le Baron]

So you're saying that a blue collar worker from an EU country didn't have the opportunity to pick a job in one of 27 countries (at least) to work and find a job that meets their needs and offered the best opportunities?

Yes I am. The EU is not an equal place. This is supposedly the very reason for free movement of both capital and labour. It's there in black in white in all the Europe treaties post the Rome Treaty. The thing is it doesn't quite operate as harmoniously as it does on paper. Belgian beer factories as an example (at least those controlled by multinationals) didn't relocate to Poland to graciously give people well-paid jobs, but because the labour costs are far cheaper - though the product's price remains the same. There are villages in Poland bereft of males of working age, who didn't just go to the Polish capital, but tried their luck elsewhere in the EU because 'low wages' in the UK (or NL, or Germany or Belgium) beat 'low wages' in Poland. Though the living experience in that scenario is not fit for anyone.

I think the EU may have a different view on that.

Oh? What is that view?

 

[Seeker_UK]

Oh? What is that view?

That "Freedom to work all over the place largely benefits professional workers, not bottom-end workers."

 

[NeilR]

so pretty much what most of us on PFM think!

 

[Tony L]

Keep repeating that doesn't make it true. There is a serious labour shortage in the UK and in the care and health sectors this was the case even prior to the pandemic. There is an ageing population and a real shortage of younger people willing to do these jobs and you are deluding yourself if you think that more pay is the panacea for this.

The location of labour is a key factor. There is high unemployment in the cities and surrounding urban areas, yet very little desire to move to the middle of nowhere to put dead chickens in boxes, pick veg in the pouring rain etc for minimum wage. Looking at national figures seldom gives any understanding for the reality. There is certainly no shortage of Uber drivers, pizza delivery folk etc.

 

[Le Baron]

The location of labour is a key factor. There is high unemployment in the cities and surrounding urban areas, yet very little desire to move to the middle of nowhere to put dead chickens in boxes, pick veg in the pouring rain etc for minimum wage. Looking at national figures seldom gives any understanding for the reality. There is certainly no shortage of Uber drivers, pizza delivery folk etc.

Oh yes. This is a true factor, It's the unpalatable flip side of an (largely market-led) economy where you either go to the workforce or the workforce comes to you and neither of them always correlates.
Just as many potential workers being told 'you have to be mobile, go where the work is..' protest that it's unreasonable to expect a person to constantly uproot or live out of a suitcase, industry also baulks at being told to do so (even though they often have more means to do so and has less desire to according to costs of labour). Either way it means uneven opportunities.
It's also government's refusal to admit it has a role to play - if it claims to seek equal development. To encourage/discourage some things, to support things. Unfortunately they and many of their supporters kick against the idea as 'government interference'. Seemingly preferring the negative version of government interference.

Here the city (in league with other Randstad cities) plan to curb and reduce the number of fast-food outlets and to ban some new applications. In the name of rebalancing the retail economy and for 'environmental reasons'. You have to wonder if they've thought it through though. They've allowed it to build up as it filled the gap of retail destroyed by globalisation and internet retail. And now there are hundreds employed precariously in this sector. They have no actual plan for what will happen to those people. Very reminiscent of the 80s Tories who shut and wound-down manufacturing whilst mindlessly talking about 'retraining', which apparently springs from nowhere out of the market system or is feebly offered in hopeless, half-hearted government schemes.

 

[Cav]

It simply is true, so repeating it is just repetition of a truth. If you don't care for that, it's just bad luck for you. My 'view' is based upon fact, not some guy wandering around town seeing vacancies in a job centre window. The official unemployment figures for people of working age 'available' for work are largely UNCHANGED over a 10 year period (excluding the pandemic which is unusual circumstances and made it higher). In fact they are about equal to 1970. So if Tom, Dick and Harry could muster a workforce over the last 10 years what happened? The loss of ex-EU workers is real, but as I clearly said before that represented an adjunct to the domestic labour force which is artificially kept in relatively high unemployment as a buffer and also because countries prefer to hire people they don't need to train and educate themselves.

Those available for work is problematic.

The claimant count covers those who have to available to work to claim benefits. Beyond that are the "economically inactive" (or whatever it is called these days) who are people who have no job but claim no benefits have no desire to work.

Most people use the claimant count as an indicator of the available workforce.

 

[Le Baron]

Those available for work is problematic.

The claimant count covers those who have to available to work to claim benefits. Beyond that are the "economically inactive" (or whatever it is called these days) who are people who have no job but claim no benefits have no desire to work.

Most people use the claimant count as an indicator of the available workforce.

Yes, except the bit in bold. You have no evidence that they have 'no desire to work' because they are an unknown quantity. Plenty people are shut out of claiming unemployment benefit, or are on a deliberately long wait trajectory before they are ever registered in the official statistics. Some find jobs before the wait period is even reached - suitable or unsuitable - some end up in worse situations.

 

[Tony L]

Very reminiscent of the 80s Tories who shut and wound-down manufacturing whilst mindlessly talking about 'retraining', which apparently springs from nowhere out of the market system or is feebly offered in hopeless, half-hearted government schemes.

Much as I hate to admit it as someone who utterly detests the Tory Party that did actually work fine for me, eventually. After a long bout of unemployment I ended up being sent on a computer programming course (COBOL) in 1989 I think. I just clicked with it, I had a natural aptitude for it and got a proper paid job teaching the next course (I ended up with all the NVQ teaching/verification etc qualifications) and from there dived properly into IT contracting. I went from long-term unemployed to earning £30-60 an hour in a period of just a few years. I had to move to That London to get the good money, but I enjoyed that. Everything I’ve done since was opened up by that opportunity. Retraining is certainly possible. I will always support politics that genuinely opens up opportunity, not that I see much evidence of similar anywhere today. I sure as hell don’t pine for the days (before my time) of mines, mills, assembly-line work etc. All that is my idea of a living hell. To be honest the idea of being someone else’s ‘labour’ at all is my idea of hell.

 

[Le Baron]

Much as I hate to admit it as someone who detests the Tory Party that did actually work fine for me, eventually. After a long bout of unemployment I ended up being sent on a computer programming course (COBOL), just clicked with it, got a proper job teaching the next course (I ended up with all the NVQ teaching/verification etc qualifications) and from there dived properly into IT contracting - I went from long-term unemployed to earning £30-60 an hour in a period of just a few years. I had to move to That London to get the good money, but I enjoyed that. Everything I’ve done since was opened up by that opportunity. Retraining is certainly possible. I will always support politics that genuinely opens up opportunity. I sure as hell don’t pine for the days (before my time) of mines, mills, assembly-line work etc. All that is my idea of a living hell. To be honest the idea of being someone else’s ‘labour’ is my idea of hell.

I'm not going to contradict you. This view has put me at odds with a lot of people who supported Blair, since he did little more than the Tories and in some cases threw more of it to 'market solutions' than the middle-80s Tories ever did. It dawned on them at some point that they had to prop-up training, even if they plotted pocket money remuneration while training.
My father, whose real trade was hid hard in the 80s, went on a TV/video repair training course. That seems very quaint now when so little is repaired or repairable, but it did open up opportunities and he taught himself computer repair as an add-on. Still the general economy hampered it. Training in computer programming was the thing for the 80s and they pushed that hard for good or ill. Probably mostly good. It's hard to admit - as you said - but the Tories actually allowed students to claim the dole and also offered the opportunity to enrol at a college for education or training. 1997 effectively abolished both, which people forget and which was most shocking to me from a supposedly 'Labour' government.

 

[Cav]

Yes, except the bit in bold. You have no evidence that they have 'no desire to work' because they are an unknown quantity. Plenty people are shut out of claiming unemployment benefit, or are on a deliberately long wait trajectory before they are ever registered in the official statistics. Some find jobs before the wait period is even reached - suitable or unsuitable - some end up in worse situations.

Equally, you have no evidence that they do. Nor any evidence for the rest of your speculation. Some might be of independent means, have other sources of income, be supported by a working spouse and so on.

All I am suggesting is that the claimant count is a reasonably reliable indicator of the potential workforce.

 

[Le Baron]

Equally, you have no evidence that they do. Nor any evidence for the rest of your speculation. Some might be of independent means, have other sources of income, be supported by a working spouse and so on.

All I am suggesting is that the claimant count is a reasonably reliable indicator of the potential workforce.

Yet I didn't make any claim as to their lack of desire, you did. Being supported by a working spouse is not being 'employed'. I doubt very much the 'independent means' option covers a great deal of the unemployed.

Get real.

 

[puddlesplasher]

Everyone seems to be in the opinion that basic wage needs to increase but with the cost of rising inflation. The thing is with the larger companies at least, the whole idea of keeping costs low as possible so the people at the top can get an ever larger bonus. Profit needs to shared not taken by the greedy few. One problem for increased wages is the smaller companies would find it harder to compete.