Hi Melanie,
At 17:15 10/08/00 +0100, you wrote:
>Keith,
> I've been wondering how you perceive the youth employment scene in
England now
>compared to your posts on Futurework four or five years ago.
>Melanie
I think it has changed over here -- at least in England. (The situation is
not very different from four or five years ago in western Europe -- in
reality, youth unemployment is probably worse.) What seems to have happened
is that there has been a vast growth in service jobs (scores of thousands
of jobs in call centres, for example -- usually young female jobs) and of
so-called high-tech jobs (most of which are merely assembly work in
high-tech factories). We seem to have turned very significantly to an
American-type economy rather than a European one. The relatively large
amount of investment in high-tech business in England, although nowhere
near as high as America's, is many times higher per capita than in Europe.
This suggests that the trends of the past four or five years will continue
-- at least for a few years (unless America stalls).
In overall figures, the unemployment rate among young people (particularly
women) is a great deal better than it was. However, there are serious
weaknesses in the structure of employment I feel. I already mentioned a
week or two back on FW that there are probably something like 300,000 young
men who have disappeared from the unemployment figures because they have
dropped out of, or never started on, the government's New Deal training
schemes and now no longer receive benefits. In my opinion there are at
least twice that number (of young men) who are in temporary and part-time
employment but who, as they get older, will become unemployed (because
they're not so fit, they've gained no skills and it will be easier to
survive on benefit without effort). Furthermore, even if the present
"optimistic" picture of employment continues for women, I foresee call
centre jobs being replaced by sophisticated computerised helplines -- voice
recognition software is now coming of age.
The present Labour government will undoubtedly go into the next general
election patting themselves on the back that, in the economic field, they
have achieved great things. (They haven't actually. We've done reasonably
well because the government hasn't increased corporate taxation and has
generally left business alone.) (However, they'll go into the election with
two increasing disasters -- education and health -- both huge civil service
empires.) However, my antennae tell me that what has been happening in the
past few years has disguised a changing structure of employment -- from
that of a diamond shape to that of an hour-glass. The evidence for this is
anecdotal -- somewhat along the lines I've outlined above -- but it's also
significant, I think that when big business are recruiting new graduates
for their management and technical jobs they are now confining their
"milk-run" to about a dozen universities instead of the 15 or 20 that they
used to -- despite the fact that the number of universities and apparently
"qualified" graduates has swelled considerably in the last few years. (So
much for the "productivity" effect of universities.)
I don't think that statistics will show this effect adequately for some
time, but I think the present trends in the structure of employment will
continue apace and there will come a time, probably within the next 5-10
years, when dramatic changes will suddenly reveal themselves -- similar,
say, to the tsunami wave of unemployment that hit young people in 1979/80.
At the end of the next shake-out I wouldn't be surprised to see the
hour-glass structure of employment start yo emerge out quite clearly.
best wishes,
Keith
>
>Keith Hudson wrote:
>
>> There are yet more signs that the State administered educational system in
>> the UK is breaking down. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT)
>> say that the increased red tape from the government and the recent
>> introduction of performance related pay for teachers (the invidious task of
>> choosing the winners being left to head teaches) is causing increasing
>> numbers of head teachers leaving the profession.
>>
>> In the first six months of 1998 there were 1,199 advertisements in the
>> Times Educational supplement for head teachers. In 1999 there were 1,288
>> adverts in the same period. This year there were 1,799 adverts.
>>
>> The NAHT is using the figures to justify higher salaries for head teachers
>> -- at least 3,000 pounds (US$4,500) more. But although this may well
>> attract sufficient numbers of applicants to fill the jobs, higher salaries
>> won't compensate for the increasing stress. Maybe resignations will flatten
>> out somewhat for a period while the new head teachers settle in -- but then
>> stress levels will rise again, morale in many schools will decline further,
>> and the country is that little bit closer to inevitable large scale
breakdown.
>>
>> Keith Hudson
>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>> Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
_______________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________________________________
