Estate where only one person has a job. Enjoy
Discussion
Another interesting article in the titless telegraph today, which although focuses on the US is applicable to the UK.
"There is a telling detail in the US retail chain store data for December. Stephen Lewis from Monument Securities points out that luxury outlets saw an 8.1pc rise from a year ago, but discount stores catering to America’s poorer half rose just 1.2pc.
Tiffany’s, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue are booming. Sales of Cadillac cars have jumped 35pc, while Porsche’s US sales are up 29pc.
Cartier and Louis Vuitton have helped boost the luxury goods stock index by almost 50pc since October. Yet Best Buy, Target, and Walmart have languished.
Such is the blighted fruit of Federal Reserve policy. The Fed no longer even denies that the purpose of its latest blast of bond purchases, or QE2, is to drive up Wall Street, perhaps because it has so signally failed to achieve its other purpose of driving down borrowing costs.
Yet surely Ben Bernanke’s `trickle down’ strategy risks corroding America’s ethic of solidarity long before it does much to help America’s poor.
The long-term unemployed (more than six months) have reached 42pc of the total, twice the peak of the early 1990s. Nothing like this has been seen since the World War Two.
The Gini Coefficient used to measure income inequality has risen from the mid-30s to 46.8 over the last quarter century, touching the same extremes reached in the Roaring Twenties just before the Slump. It has also been ratcheting up in Britain and Europe.
Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s former chief economist, argues that the subprime debt build-up was an attempt – “whether carefully planned or the path of least resistance” – to disguise stagnating incomes and to buy off the poor.
“The inevitable bill could be postponed into the future. Cynical as it might seem, easy credit has been used throughout history as a palliative by governments that are unable to address the deeper anxieties of the middle class directly,” he said.
Bank failures in the Depression were in part caused by expansion of credit to struggling farmers in response to the US Populist movement.
Extreme inequalities are toxic for societies, but there is also a body of scholarship suggesting that they cause depressions as well by upsetting the economic balance. They create a bias towards asset bubbles and overinvestment, while holding down consumption, until the system becomes top-heavy and tips over, as happened in the 1930s.
The switch from brawn to brain in the internet age has obviously pushed up the Gini count, but so has globalization. Multinationals are exploiting “labour arbitrage” by moving plant to low-wage countries, playing off workers in China and the West against each other. The profit share of corporations is at record highs across in America and Europe.
More subtly, Asia’s mercantilist powers have flooded the world with excess capacity, holding down their currencies to lock in trade surpluses. The effect is to create a black hole in the global system.
Yes, we can still hope that this is a passing phase until rising wages in Asia restore balance to East and West, but what it if it proves to be permanent, a structural incompatibility of the Confucian model with our own Ricardian trade doctrine?
There is no easy solution to creeping depression in America and swathes of the Old World. A Keynesian `New Deal’ of borrowing on the bond markets to build roads, bridges, solar farms, or nuclear power stations to soak up the army of unemployed is not a credible option in our new age of sovereign debt jitters. The fiscal card is played out.
So we limp on, with very large numbers of people in the West trapped on the wrong side of globalization, and nobody doing much about it. Would Franklin Roosevelt have tolerated such a lamentable state of affairs, or would he have ripped up and reshaped the global system until it answered the needs of his citizens?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambrose...
viva la revolution, or maybe the poor can be employed keeping Londoners safe from rampaging Northern hordes.
"There is a telling detail in the US retail chain store data for December. Stephen Lewis from Monument Securities points out that luxury outlets saw an 8.1pc rise from a year ago, but discount stores catering to America’s poorer half rose just 1.2pc.
Tiffany’s, Nordstrom, and Saks Fifth Avenue are booming. Sales of Cadillac cars have jumped 35pc, while Porsche’s US sales are up 29pc.
Cartier and Louis Vuitton have helped boost the luxury goods stock index by almost 50pc since October. Yet Best Buy, Target, and Walmart have languished.
Such is the blighted fruit of Federal Reserve policy. The Fed no longer even denies that the purpose of its latest blast of bond purchases, or QE2, is to drive up Wall Street, perhaps because it has so signally failed to achieve its other purpose of driving down borrowing costs.
Yet surely Ben Bernanke’s `trickle down’ strategy risks corroding America’s ethic of solidarity long before it does much to help America’s poor.
The long-term unemployed (more than six months) have reached 42pc of the total, twice the peak of the early 1990s. Nothing like this has been seen since the World War Two.
The Gini Coefficient used to measure income inequality has risen from the mid-30s to 46.8 over the last quarter century, touching the same extremes reached in the Roaring Twenties just before the Slump. It has also been ratcheting up in Britain and Europe.
Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s former chief economist, argues that the subprime debt build-up was an attempt – “whether carefully planned or the path of least resistance” – to disguise stagnating incomes and to buy off the poor.
“The inevitable bill could be postponed into the future. Cynical as it might seem, easy credit has been used throughout history as a palliative by governments that are unable to address the deeper anxieties of the middle class directly,” he said.
Bank failures in the Depression were in part caused by expansion of credit to struggling farmers in response to the US Populist movement.
Extreme inequalities are toxic for societies, but there is also a body of scholarship suggesting that they cause depressions as well by upsetting the economic balance. They create a bias towards asset bubbles and overinvestment, while holding down consumption, until the system becomes top-heavy and tips over, as happened in the 1930s.
The switch from brawn to brain in the internet age has obviously pushed up the Gini count, but so has globalization. Multinationals are exploiting “labour arbitrage” by moving plant to low-wage countries, playing off workers in China and the West against each other. The profit share of corporations is at record highs across in America and Europe.
More subtly, Asia’s mercantilist powers have flooded the world with excess capacity, holding down their currencies to lock in trade surpluses. The effect is to create a black hole in the global system.
Yes, we can still hope that this is a passing phase until rising wages in Asia restore balance to East and West, but what it if it proves to be permanent, a structural incompatibility of the Confucian model with our own Ricardian trade doctrine?
There is no easy solution to creeping depression in America and swathes of the Old World. A Keynesian `New Deal’ of borrowing on the bond markets to build roads, bridges, solar farms, or nuclear power stations to soak up the army of unemployed is not a credible option in our new age of sovereign debt jitters. The fiscal card is played out.
So we limp on, with very large numbers of people in the West trapped on the wrong side of globalization, and nobody doing much about it. Would Franklin Roosevelt have tolerated such a lamentable state of affairs, or would he have ripped up and reshaped the global system until it answered the needs of his citizens?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambrose...
viva la revolution, or maybe the poor can be employed keeping Londoners safe from rampaging Northern hordes.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Exactly. The guy who ran the blinds business below ours even said to me one day that they employ Polish workers because they are keen to work, and will always give a bit extra if a job overruns. I believe he was quite flexible as well with give and take. But, as he put it, give the job to a local, and they don't turn up half the time, will end a job at 5pm regardless and so forth, and jack the job in at a moments notice.There is no work ethic in this country because the safety net that is welfare is used as a bouncy castle.
Pesty said:
yeah we know that buts its a slightly different argument to what Cazzer is talking about I belive. You won't hear me dissagreeing about how the state perpetuates this problem with benefits.
What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Those jobs have by and large gone for one single reason. Your man in Yorkshire expects to earn £15 an hour in his foundry, whereas his counterpart in India or China expects to earn £15 a day if he's very lucky.What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
Kermit power said:
Pesty said:
yeah we know that buts its a slightly different argument to what Cazzer is talking about I belive. You won't hear me dissagreeing about how the state perpetuates this problem with benefits.
What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Those jobs have by and large gone for one single reason. Your man in Yorkshire expects to earn £15 an hour in his foundry, whereas his counterpart in India or China expects to earn £15 a day if he's very lucky.What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
Seriously, peasents? f
k off.Kermit power said:
Pesty said:
yeah we know that buts its a slightly different argument to what Cazzer is talking about I belive. You won't hear me dissagreeing about how the state perpetuates this problem with benefits.
What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Those jobs have by and large gone for one single reason. Your man in Yorkshire expects to earn £15 an hour in his foundry, whereas his counterpart in India or China expects to earn £15 a day if he's very lucky.What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
t.My Mrs has just pointed out 2 examples.
Dyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
My wifes company manufacture footballs.
They had a manufacturing plant in a european mainland country (not in the east) and a warehouse distribution and sales office here.
Then they discovered container shipping from china. The factory in europe still exists.
But the warehouse/sales office here doesnt.
From a staff of 50 people in the UK there are now two in a serviced office.
No more warehouse because its cheaper to make it in china and transport it direct to argos et al.
Don't think the warehouse guys on minimum wage caused that do you?
Dyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
My wifes company manufacture footballs.
They had a manufacturing plant in a european mainland country (not in the east) and a warehouse distribution and sales office here.
Then they discovered container shipping from china. The factory in europe still exists.
But the warehouse/sales office here doesnt.
From a staff of 50 people in the UK there are now two in a serviced office.
No more warehouse because its cheaper to make it in china and transport it direct to argos et al.
Don't think the warehouse guys on minimum wage caused that do you?
Kermit power said:
Those jobs have by and large gone for one single reason. Your man in Yorkshire expects to earn £15 an hour in his foundry, whereas his counterpart in India or China expects to earn £15 a day if he's very lucky.
Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
So even a man who is willing to get off his arse and work hard should still get paid peanuts and live in a hovel. No doubt while the owners of the foundry live in a mansion and drive ferraris everywhere. No wonder people stay on the dole.Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
without the skeleton the head would fall. Is it any wonder the trade unions grew with attitudes like this around. its the gap between the 'boss' and the workers that also helps keep these people where they are as well as the benefits
My last house was bought by an old couple as a buy to let. We went round a few months later to get any post that was not re directed. There were 5-6 sleeping bags on the living room floor god knows how many were living there. They were eastern european. One of teh reasons they can afford to take low paid jobs.
Perhaps all us peasants should live like that.
cazzer said:
My Mrs has just pointed out 2 examples.
Dyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
I mentioned this on here years ago when it happend. I was soundly flamed by a lot of people on here.Dyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
Very interesting thread - some comments if I may?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health-care_in...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HG21Cb...
Initially, all Dyson vacuum cleaners and washing machines were made in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. When Dyson was at an attempt to expand the company for more production of vacuum cleaners, Dyson requested planning permission. The planning permit failed so in 2002, the company transferred vacuum cleaner production to Malaysia. As Dyson was the major manufacturing company in Wiltshire outside Swindon, this move aroused some controversy, although planning permission to expand the Malmesbury site had been refused, which Dyson cited as a major reason for it to look elsewhere. A year later, washing machine production was also moved to Malaysia.
Although nearly 800 manufacturing jobs were lost, Dyson states that the cost savings from transferring production to Malaysia enabled investment in R&D at Malmesbury head office, and that the company employs more people in the UK than before the move to Malaysia.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_(company)
My thoughts - The UK does still have a manufactiring and export base, albeit a declining one. Trying to keep up with the Jones's (or Chan's and Patel's) is not going to happen. There is no point in getting into trade wars with India/SE Asia.
We need to rebuild ourselves as a hi-tech, knowledge driven economy - the focus should be on engineering and sciences at school, college and university. We need a governemnt that can identify the future skills that are needed. I don't understand why we have to import nurses and doctors from countries that need them far more than we do. I would reintroduce grants for university courses that really benefit the country, and slash corporation tax to make the UK an atractive place to do business again. Chain gangs of prisoners would form the cheap labour we need to build the road and rail infrastructure that is needed to suoport growth.
rs1952 said:
A couple of years ago I was in Johannesburg talking to some friends who could not believe how much we paid for petrol and diesel (the cost over there was half the price here). I asked them about the South African minimum wage - he didn't think thay had one, but he thought the minimum anybody actually got was about 6 rand (50p) an hour. The South African government don't pay pensions to the population either. There is no Health Service - you get ill, you pay for the treatment. Or don't bother and die. Just a few examples.
We could not compete on wage rates with China because our society is geared up with high taxes on income and expenditure, and there's isn't. We will be able to complete eventually (perhaps it'll take more than a generation) as China's living standards and wage levels catch up with western ones.
I know you were talking about S. Africa when it came to welfare, but it is worth pointing out that China does have healthcare and pensions (albeit underfunded, ring any bells...)We could not compete on wage rates with China because our society is geared up with high taxes on income and expenditure, and there's isn't. We will be able to complete eventually (perhaps it'll take more than a generation) as China's living standards and wage levels catch up with western ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health-care_in...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HG21Cb...
supersingle said:
China strictly controls it's currency and absolutely will not let it strengthen to the point where it's exports might be damaged. That's hardly free trade is it?
How is QE any different?cazzer said:
My Mrs has just pointed out 2 examples.
Dyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
Production moves to MalaysiaDyson. Designed and Manufactured in the UK.
Started becoming popular. Moved the production to asia somewhere.
Ok so he kept the design dept here. Great. So thats 100 jobs here. And a thousand in the factory over there.
Dysons pretty much cost the same now as they did then. So purely for more profit for the shareholders 1000 factory workers over here are back to being "dole scum". Their fault? I don't think so.
Initially, all Dyson vacuum cleaners and washing machines were made in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. When Dyson was at an attempt to expand the company for more production of vacuum cleaners, Dyson requested planning permission. The planning permit failed so in 2002, the company transferred vacuum cleaner production to Malaysia. As Dyson was the major manufacturing company in Wiltshire outside Swindon, this move aroused some controversy, although planning permission to expand the Malmesbury site had been refused, which Dyson cited as a major reason for it to look elsewhere. A year later, washing machine production was also moved to Malaysia.
Although nearly 800 manufacturing jobs were lost, Dyson states that the cost savings from transferring production to Malaysia enabled investment in R&D at Malmesbury head office, and that the company employs more people in the UK than before the move to Malaysia.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_(company)
My thoughts - The UK does still have a manufactiring and export base, albeit a declining one. Trying to keep up with the Jones's (or Chan's and Patel's) is not going to happen. There is no point in getting into trade wars with India/SE Asia.
We need to rebuild ourselves as a hi-tech, knowledge driven economy - the focus should be on engineering and sciences at school, college and university. We need a governemnt that can identify the future skills that are needed. I don't understand why we have to import nurses and doctors from countries that need them far more than we do. I would reintroduce grants for university courses that really benefit the country, and slash corporation tax to make the UK an atractive place to do business again. Chain gangs of prisoners would form the cheap labour we need to build the road and rail infrastructure that is needed to suoport growth.
Well if you want the entire country to revolve around London mecca financial services then you are going to end up with huge unemployed areas. And all the super heros in mecca will have to support us manual labouring scumballs.
The situation we are in has many contributing factors, the shutting down of heavy industries which is no shock as ships built in the UK in the 70s and 80s were st, the complete lack of work ethic for many many years, labour wanting everyone to be a degree educated something or other and our joyous social security.
The situation we are in has many contributing factors, the shutting down of heavy industries which is no shock as ships built in the UK in the 70s and 80s were s
t, the complete lack of work ethic for many many years, labour wanting everyone to be a degree educated something or other and our joyous social security.anonymous said:
[redacted]
Costs UK worker: £9 per hour
Malaysian worker: £3 per hour
UK office rent: £114 sq m a year
Malaysia office rent: £38 sq m a year
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit and BBC
http://www.geographyinthenews.rgs.org/news/article...
Rather than piss EU contributions and green taxes up the wall, would it have hurt to help Dyson expand in the UK?
Victor McDade said:
...
These guys all work LEGALLY so the minimum wage still applies so why are employers disproportionately hiring foreign born workers? Either their work ethic stands head and shoulders above local men and woman or the locals just don't apply for such 'low' jobs. Probably a combination of both.
This, my father works in construction and foreign workers get paid just as much, they just are much happier with what they get.These guys all work LEGALLY so the minimum wage still applies so why are employers disproportionately hiring foreign born workers? Either their work ethic stands head and shoulders above local men and woman or the locals just don't apply for such 'low' jobs. Probably a combination of both.
supersingle said:
Kermit power said:
Pesty said:
yeah we know that buts its a slightly different argument to what Cazzer is talking about I belive. You won't hear me dissagreeing about how the state perpetuates this problem with benefits.
What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Those jobs have by and large gone for one single reason. Your man in Yorkshire expects to earn £15 an hour in his foundry, whereas his counterpart in India or China expects to earn £15 a day if he's very lucky.What if the man in your example could do a tough job like work in a foundry that maybe does not need a huge amount of quals? he could maybe earn £15 an hour but the foundries are not there any more they are in India and China.
These jobs down the pit or in the steel mill have all but gone for various reasons.
Why do you suppose your man in Yorkshire doesn't have a foundry to work in?
Don't blame the government. Blame previous generations of workers and unions who demanded princely wages for peasant jobs.
t.How are you going to pay workers the wages you think they deserve, whilst at the same time ensuring that the products they produce can be sold at a price that those same workers are willing to pay?
It's amazing the number of people on this thread who either can't or won't see the basic economics of the situation.
Yes, of course managers will take steps to keep their shareholders happy, because the shareholders own the company, but that essentially means selling products.
The various failed "Buy British" campaigns of the past are a pretty clear testament to the fact that the ordinary British worker, just like every other segment of society, doesn't give a toss about other people's jobs if it means they can't afford that nice, shiny new TV.
Unionised labour in this country negotiated wages to the point where the ordinary British worker became completely uncompetitive at a global level. This woudn't necessarily be a problem if individuals were willing to pay a price premium for British made goods over Chinese, but they're not.
One manufacturer after another went to the wall in this country, and how many of those ordinary British workers looked at a British product 20% more expensive than the Chinese (or at the time Japanese) one on the shelf next to it and thought "I'll buy the more expensive one, because it's British?"
None of them.
So bring in tariffs and import duties, you cry! Does the phrase "rip off Britain" ring any bells?
Do you really think that the ordinary British worker would accept paying big premiums compared to the prices they'd see in the rest of the world whenever they went on holiday?
I can fully understand why low skilled workers look around them and want higher pay, but the fact remains that they are in jobs where they are uncompetitive at higher pay. How do you solve that?
There will come a time when the average Chinese worker will look around him and decide he wants to be paid more, and the economic cycle will move on.
Those Lancashire mills whose loss is being bemoaned on this thread didn't grow up on the back of paid holidays, overtime, unions and private healthcare. They grew up on the back of vile working conditions (often for children), six and a half day working weeks and out on your ear at a moment's notice if you got sick, with the employers paying very little tax. Absolutely foul working conditions which nobody wanted, and people only accepted because staying at home on the dole didn't exist as an option. That, plus better technology certainly made them competitive, though!
So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
Kermit power said:
So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
By giving him the tools and training to work more efficiently. Look at the wages in Germany and Japan yet those countries still have heavy industry. Kermit power said:
...
So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
By allowing the cost of living to go down until the Yorkshire foundry worker no longer wants £15 an hour and we become competitive again.So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
grantone said:
Kermit power said:
...
So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
By allowing the cost of living to go down until the Yorkshire foundry worker no longer wants £15 an hour and we become competitive again.So, answer the question... How do you pay your Yorkshire foundry worker the £15 an hour he wants, when nobody is prepared to pay the necessary premium for the goods he produces.
Edited by Fittster on Tuesday 11th January 08:29
cazzer said:
Don't think the warehouse guys on minimum wage caused that do you?
I know from bitter experience how difficult it was to recruit and retain 'general labour' between 2003 and 2007. Warehousing was one of our problem areas, to the point that our warehouse manager needed some moral support to assure him that "it wasn't him" that was the reason for staff turnover. Minimum wage legislation, benefits, competion for labour from the public sectorm, all spoiled the unskilled echelons of the British workforce; for every person who would rather work to live than receive handouts, there were more who didn't or, who deliberately jumped ship (with encouragement from eomployment agencies) on a regualr basis in an attempt to ratchet up pay.Talk also to any of the employment agencies who thrived during this period - first by importing near European labour, then Eastern Europe and later, further afield - and they will, if they are honest, attest to how lucretive 'bodyshopping' was.
Of course the situation was a bubble, but a very damaging one for the work ethos of the country and also for businesses who suffered as a result. As of the end of 2008, we were prospective beating applicants away with a s
tty stick - not literally, because it was, frankly, very sad to see (often skilled) workers looking for employment in such numbers.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff