'That is no country for old men....Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.' W.B.Yeats 'Sailing To Byzantium.' 1926
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Britain is no country and a country for old men staying in their jobs
I read an article in 'The Daily Mail' newspaper entitled :
Million young Britons on the job scrapheap: Almost one in five is unemployed
Apparently, 20.3% of 16 to 24-year-olds are without a job, the highest number since records began and standing at 951,000.
This can be bad for the youngsters. 'The Prince’s Trust', has pointed to research which showed unemployment can trigger 'mental health problems in the young such as self-loathing, panic attacks and depression.'
I'm a bit puzzled by the logic behind this :
1. You have never had a job.
2. So you don't know what it's like to have a job.
3. The the thought of not having, what you have never had, is going to bring on all sorts of problems.
So who or what is to blame for this ?
* The Government, through its Employment Minister has said : ‘This is compelling evidence of the way in which the last Labour Government completely failed a generation of young people.'
* The Trades Union have said : it is the Coalition Government which 'is poisoning recovery'.
* The 'Daily Mail' has said : 'Increasing numbers of older people are staying in work for longer, a phenomenon which has attracted the label ‘bed blocking’ as it leaves fewer vacancies.
* Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of 'Migration Watch UK', has said that 'pressure on young people is made worse by the fact that just a third of jobs created over the last year went to British-born workers. More than 200,000 went to workers born abroad, compared with 100,000 to those born in this country.'
The Last Government ?
The Present Government?
Old people ?
Migrants ?
So, who does the 'Daily Mail' think are mostly to blame?
The answer : OLD PEOPLE, because you are :
* in record numbers,continuing to work, and despite reaching the traditional retirement age, 870,000 of you are part of 'Britain’s biggest-ever army of older workers' and many of you are in your 70's or even 80's.'
In mitigation, the paper does point out that :
* many of you are forced to keep working because you cannot afford to retire, most of you in the private sector don't have a pension and many of you have little or no savings and still have a mortgage and grown-up children who need financial help.
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