More than a fifth of UK adults not looking for work

[ks.234]

Anyone expecting full employment is deluded, before or after any Wall Street Crash. There will always be people who choose not to work or can't work because of childcare, care for the elderly, those recovering from illness or still ill, those taking early retirement, of private means or any variety of reasons. How many women aged 16-65 worked at the time of the WSC? Few. How many of childbearing age? Fewer still. The causes of people being economically inactive are manifold and defy any simple one-size-fits-all solution.

Unemployment in this sense explicitly means involuntary unemployment, and what is counted and what is not counted is as much a political decision then as now. Obviously no one is talking in absolute terms but about politics and policies whose motives are directed towards full employment, or away from it.

Not sure what a one size fit all solution is, but we had much lower unemployment after WW2

Investment in a job guarantee that provides a job for everyone who wants one on a decent wage with holiday pay and pension entitlements would go a long way to creating a more stable economy that is more capable of supporting those who cannot work due to disability and care commitments etc.

 

[matt j]

Interestingly, in Denmark it is much easier to hire and fire people than in the UK. Their government makes it deliberately easy for an employer to get rid of staff they no longer need or want. One result is they have much less use of zero-hours contracts and businesses feel they can hire for the short-term if they need to. People can take a job and leave it if it is not a good fit.
There is a big BUT, however in that they have an excellent support system for unemployment with a guaranteed income of X% of whatever your wage was, until you find a job of your choosing, in your own time (e.g. no forcing of ex-retail managers to clean toilets).

What they have done is shift the burden of supporting the labour force from employers ( leaving them free to do business ) and onto the state. It seems to work for them but presupposes a government that actually cares about it's population and has their best interests at heart.

Our clever clogs have adopted the first part and ignored the second.

 

[stevec67]

Unemployment in this sense explicitly means involuntary unemployment, and what is counted and what is not counted is as much a political decision then as now.

The numbers quoted above by the ONS do not refer exclusively to involuntary employment.

 

[stevec67]

investment in a job guarantee that provides a job for everyone who wants one on a decent wage with holiday pay and pension entitlements would go a long way to creating a more stable economy

Can you give an example of a developed economy where this has been put to work? If so, how does it work and how effective is it?

 

[ks.234]

Can you give an example of a developed economy where this has been put to work? If so, how does it work and how effective is it?

After WW2 we had a social democratic economic model with full employment as an explicit objective. It largely worked.

After the 70’s we have had a neoliberal economic model with controlling inflation (by creating unemployment and it’s modern day manifestation in underemployment, insecure employment and low wages) as an explicit objective. It has comprehensively failed.

It used to be assumed that there was a trade off between inflation and unemployment, an assumption still used today even though it was shown to be faulty by the ‘stagflation’ of the 70’s

The JG tackles that problem as shown here

 

[stevec67]

After WW2 we had a social democratic economic model with full employment as an explicit objective. It largely worked.

After WW2 we had a country to rebuild, shortage of essential goods and no available indigenous workforce. The prisons and other economically unproductive had been emptied into to the trenches. War has always worked as a means of regenerating economies. It's not a solution that I would advocate now, or ever.

My grandfather was a works foreman in the post war construction sector. He had a hand in rebuilding large parts of Sheffield city centre after the Luftwaffe had spent a good deal of time trying to destroy it along with the steel industry. They didn't manage it, it took a grocer's daughter 40 years later to do that. That's another story. However his tales of the ragtag and bobtail ne'er do wells who were sent to him by the Labour Exchange or whatever they were called at that time paint a far different picture to any Utopian dream of full employment.

 

[kensalriser]

The post war rebuilding periods with depleted populations of working age men were ideal conditions for full employment and not comparable with periods of extended peacetime.

The emphasis on work and jobs in the traditional sense is barking up the wrong tree because it's all part of the rapacious iteration of capitalism that plunders finite resources to produce mountains of useless and environmentally destructive consumerist crap that form the mirage of a high standard of living. What's needed is better distribution of wealth, less work and more individual time. That would be a real revolution.

 

[ks.234]

After WW2 we had a country to rebuild, shortage of essential goods and no available indigenous workforce. The prisons and other economically unproductive had been emptied into to the trenches. War has always worked as a means of regenerating economies. It's not a solution that I would advocate now, or ever.

My grandfather was a works foreman in the post war construction sector. He had a hand in rebuilding large parts of Sheffield city centre after the Luftwaffe had spent a good deal of time trying to destroy it along with the steel industry. They didn't manage it, it took a grocer's daughter 40 years later to do that. That's another story. However his tales of the ragtag and bobtail ne'er do wells who were sent to him by the Labour Exchange or whatever they were called at that time paint a far different picture to any Utopian dream of full employment.

You seem determined to paint any alternative to the underemployment, insecure employment and low wages of neoliberalism as a Utopian dream.

Real full employment is not a utopian dream. It is a means to an end. Just as underemployment, insecure employment and low wages are a means to an end.

It just depends on which ends to are aiming for.

 

[stevec67]

You seem determined to paint any alternative to the underemployment, insecure employment and low wages of neoliberalism as a Utopian dream.

No. I'm not saying anything of the kind. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

Real full employment is not a utopian dream. It is a means to an end.

I'm pointing out that it is unattainable in practice. Unless it's just after WW2. Even then it was anything but ideal. I'll ask again, what developed country, with the exception of places that needed rebuilding post WW2, had or has anything approaching "real full employment"? How does it wok, how successful is it?

 

[ks.234]

The post war rebuilding periods with depleted populations of working age men were ideal conditions for full employment and not comparable with periods of extended peacetime.

The emphasis on work and jobs in the traditional sense is barking up the wrong tree because it's all part of the rapacious iteration of capitalism that plunders finite resources to produce mountains of useless and environmentally destructive consumerist crap that form the mirage of a high standard of living. What's needed is better distribution of wealth, less work and more individual time. That would be a real revolution.

The US and Germany both started their own ‘Keynesian’ policies before the war and both showed early signs improvement before the war.

 

[Mike Hughes]

The carers allowance is an allowance for the loved one’s who give up work to care for people.

Not quite accurate.

You don’t have to have given up work in order to establish entitlement. You might well already be out of work.

There is an earnings limit which, faced with the stark nature of care needs, can effectively push sometime to cease their employment but many people do in fact continue to work part-time and claim CA.

CA can also be claimed over pensionable age although many myths persist suggesting that is not the case.

 

[ks.234]

No. I'm not saying anything of the kind. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

I'm pointing out that it is unattainable in practice. Unless it's just after WW2. Even then it was anything but ideal. I'll ask again, what developed country, with the exception of places that needed rebuilding post WW2, had or has anything approaching "real full employment"? How does it wok, how successful is it?

Already answered those questions, already shown that we had policies aimed at full employment after WW2 and US and Germany had them before. Those policies created the New Deal and Baby Boomers in the US, and the Welfare State and “we never had it so good” in the UK. In Germany it was used to finance an arms industry sufficient to execute a war.

Already shown in detail, how it works. It was successful in the past, it could be successful again. The issue that is preventing it is people who believe there is no alternative

 

[Finnegan]

The depleted population of working age men during WW2 was filled by women (who were largely returned to domestic activity at its conclusion). Following WW2, labour shortages were addressed by widespread immigration from the Commonwealth. There is no fixed pool of labour that, once full, cannot accommodate further expansion.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, when advances in technology meant machines could produce exponentially more than previously produced by individual peasants, smiths and artisans, unemployment has been baked into capitalist economics: both as a consequence of capitalist development and in order to discipline the workforce through wage restraint and threat of redundancy.

The massive and unprecedented thirty year period of expansion post WW2- predicated on Cold War arms spending, was very much the exception rather than the rule. And even then, although unemployment in the west was low, it was never altogether eradicated,

 

[Bob McC]

Not quite accurate.

You don’t have to have given up work in order to establish entitlement. You might well already be out of work.

There is an earnings limit which, faced with the stark nature of care needs, can effectively push sometime to cease their employment but many people do in fact continue to work part-time and claim CA.

CA can also be claimed over pensionable age although many myths persist suggesting that is not the case.

Over pension age claims are more complicated though.

 

[stevec67]

Already answered those questions, already shown that we had policies aimed at full employment after WW2 and US and Germany had them before. Those policies created the New Deal and Baby Boomers in the US, and the Welfare State and “we never had it so good” in the UK. In Germany it was used to finance an arms industry sufficient to execute a war.

Already shown in detail, how it works. It was successful in the past, it could be successful again. The issue that is preventing it is people who believe there is no alternative

No you haven't shown it in detail, we've been round this before. It *might* be successful now, but build-up to and recovery from WW2 are hardly conditions that we want to repeat. They were also 80 years ago. Wilson was 50 years ago. I would like to explore how we climb out of the current stagnation and God knows I'm no advocate for austerity and tax cuts. That doesn't work, we all know.
So now, today, 24 years into the 21st century, who's making any sort of a decent stab at what you suggest?

 

[ks.234]

No you haven't shown it in detail, we've been round this before. It *might* be successful now, but build-up to and recovery from WW2 are hardly conditions that we want to repeat. They were also 80 years ago. Wilson was 50 years ago. I would like to explore how we climb out of the current stagnation and God knows I'm no advocate for austerity and tax cuts. That doesn't work, we all know.
So now, today, 24 years into the 21st century, who's making any sort of a decent stab at what you suggest?

No one in power or opposition is “making a decent stab” at changing our current political orthodoxy. That does not mean that such change is not needed.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Over pension age claims are more complicated though.

Only because the DWP letters are inept. Otherwise the process is…

• if CA is more than SRP you get the difference. Especially relevant to anyone who paid the reduced married woman’s stamp or worked abroad.
• if CA is less than SRP you claim and establish an underlying entitlement. The letter which says that is then used to establish title to things like extra Pension Credit etc.

 

[stevec67]

No one in power or opposition is “making a decent stab” at changing our current political orthodoxy. That does not mean that such change is not needed.

I'm not just talking in the UK. Anywhere. You cited USA, Germany, previously, what do we have in the present? What are the Scandis doing? They're pretty progressive, high tax, high income, high welfare, and they certainly aren't averse to taxing +2% to raise incomes by 3%. Who would object to that?

 

[ks.234]

I'm not just talking in the UK. Anywhere. You cited USA, Germany, previously, what do we have in the present? What are the Scandis doing? They're pretty progressive, high tax, high income, high welfare, and they certainly aren't averse to taxing +2% to raise incomes by 3%. Who would object to that?

You might not be talking about the UK, but the underemployment in the UK is the topic of this thread. Underemployment, insecure employment and low wages are, I have argued, a function of our current orthodoxy.

If you are now arguing that what the Scandis have is a more progressive alternative to what we in the UK have now, then I would probably agree.

 

[davidsrsb]

It would not surprise me if these jobs are a net loss to the real economy as a whole (but generate vast profits for a tiny number of people).

Unfortunately capitalism worships the tiny group