Graduates on benefits claiming too sick to work

fancythat

With the topic on this forum, even something that happened to someone or other 8 years ago, may not at all reflect now.

My son's experience was 2 years ago and already within his chosen field they are streamlining because they are using a lot more AI. My future DIL's experience was this year.
It is very easy not to realise how many years have passed!

Am thinking your DD is not in the uk .....not sure a Maccy Ds hygiene certificate would be of much use in the NHS

I read this today. I agree.

MartavTaurus

How can so many go straight from uni into being "sick" without having done a day's work?

I don’t know as sickness benefit is a contributory benefit which is dependent on NI contributions. Perhaps they are claiming Universal Credit which is not a contributory benefit?

I can’t read the article without paying for a subscription, but how are they defining ‘graduates’? Does it mean those who have recently completed degrees, much older people (more likely to be sick) who graduated decades ago, or anyone entering the workforce? I have heard the word used to mean all of those things. What are the stats for non-graduates, and how do they compare?

The rest of the OP suggests firstly that the issue is MH, but then veers into the usual bugbear about the pointless nature of education rather than training, so it’s difficult to follow the argument.

Doodledog

I can’t read the article without paying for a subscription, but how are they defining ‘graduates’? Does it mean those who have recently completed degrees, much older people (more likely to be sick) who graduated decades ago, or anyone entering the workforce? I have heard the word used to mean all of those things. What are the stats for non-graduates, and how do they compare?

The rest of the OP suggests firstly that the issue is MH, but then veers into the usual bugbear about the pointless nature of education rather than training, so it’s difficult to follow the argument.

I thought that too. Where is the data?

It is also worth pointing out that that apprenticeships are not just about plumbers and electricians these days. Degree apprenticeships can be in a range of industries, from engineering, to science, to law, to marketing and digital. Eighty per cent of the time on the job and 20 per cent studying.

Graduates with a University degree.

www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/700000-jobless-graduates-now-claiming-benefits

Try this. The Telegraph article comes from here.

It doesn’t say how the word is defined though. I am ‘a graduate’, but not in work. Do I count?

I also take issue with the idea that people can be overqualified for a job. What does that mean? Someone having more qualifications than the job advert specified? What if they just want a low stress job with few responsibilities? Not everyone is career driven. Their qualifications might not be strictly necessary, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the right person for the job.

So a Think Tank founded by Ian Duncan Smith.
"The new report, Rewiring Education, argues that Britain’s education system is profoundly unbalanced and needs to be comprehensively rewired.
It warns that treating technical education as a second-class path has left both the education system and jobs market badly distorted, with many graduates chasing unattainable jobs as employers struggle to recruit people with practical and technical skills."

Shame the Conservatives got rid of the brilliant Tomlinson Report when they came to power. It could have all been so different.

There isn't a British education system. Scotland has its own

Doodledog

It doesn’t say how the word is defined though. I am ‘a graduate’, but not in work. Do I count?

I also take issue with the idea that people can be overqualified for a job. What does that mean? Someone having more qualifications than the job advert specified? What if they just want a low stress job with few responsibilities? Not everyone is career driven. Their qualifications might not be strictly necessary, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the right person for the job.

It used to be that people got a job, and then moved on to "better things", leaving an employer in the lurch,

Dont know if that happens nowadays or not.

From what little I know, it doesnt happen, as they are not employed in the first place.

My father made a point of finding out the official IQ scores for three of us - himself, me and my brother.

That was clever of him.

Fancythat
You could also acknowledge that employees are left in the lurch when a company lets you go.

fancythat

^My father made a point of finding out the official IQ scores for three of us - himself, me and my brother.^

That was clever of him.

Nothing clever in that. You pay a psychologist and they do the tests.
Today’s going rate is about £400.

fancythat

^My father made a point of finding out the official IQ scores for three of us - himself, me and my brother.^

That was clever of him.

I think it was the correct thing to do.

Being my father and the way he operates - and was a teacher himself latterly after retraining = he made sure my whole schoolyear had that test LOL. I know his "footprints" of his way of working by now to know just who was behind that.....

He took a "come one...come all" attitude and taught others how to follow and do whatever he'd just done for himself. Cue for probably quite a few ex-servicemen also getting compensatory payment for damages done to them during the course of their service. He brought his own complaint....got his own compensation....and then told everyone else how to. I came to recognise "his footprints" on anything after a while....

I think part of it too was trying to tell me my erstwhile brother wasnt very capable of "fending for himself" - a non-issue in the event...as he married a woman I'd estimate as average intelligence and certainly very grabby nature. So she "leads his life" for him basically....and points him in the direction she wishes him to go...

I also take issue with the idea that people can be overqualified for a job. What does that mean?

It means that employers are either worried that the person they are employing are likely to take their job (that has actually happened in my experience) or they don't want to train them just to have them leave when they get a job more suited to them. The latter is also something I know people have experienced when they have tried to get jobs in well known supermarkets a couple of years ago. Things do change though as recruitment in retail/service sector jobs is particularly difficult at the moment.

Perhaps so called "manual workers" will have the last laugh. After all AI can't cut hair.

petra

fancythat

My father made a point of finding out the official IQ scores for three of us - himself, me and my brother.

That was clever of him.

Nothing clever in that. You pay a psychologist and they do the tests.
Today’s going rate is about £400.

Very clever in my opinion.

What is £400, if he managed to alter what his kids did for their jobs.

Things do change though as recruitment in retail/service sector jobs is particularly difficult at the moment.

Not surprised.
I saw an ad in local Aldi.
£16.5k, for a Deputy store Manager!
]I dont live in London or somewhere very salubrious. No idea if that would change the wage].

petra

fancythat

My father made a point of finding out the official IQ scores for three of us - himself, me and my brother.

That was clever of him.

Nothing clever in that. You pay a psychologist and they do the tests.
Today’s going rate is about £400.

Unless you mean it is an easy thing to do.

There are all sorts of ways of being clever in life.
And that was one of them.

fancythat

What is £400, if he managed to alter what his kids did for their jobs.

£0 is even better. I don't know just who paid for the whole schoolyear I was in to do that test - he was making sure we all got it LOL.

It certainly didn't alter what I did for a job in the event - but it did help with the confidence level at least - as I thought "I'm more capable than I'd been assuming I was". It did become quite a thing though that I often had two levels of job at once - 1. The paid one 2. An unpaid voluntary job or two a couple of levels higher than the paid one. That was part of why I did voluntary work for so many years - ie to have one reasonable level job (even if I didnt get paid for it). It was quite a help when unemployed - as I just swivelled to that higher-level unpaid work and it helped a lot mentally getting through those times. It was a shame in some ways that I had to go back into the paid work again - but I knew I'd have to and kept at it applying for those jobs.

It's also been useful when bullies have started up over the years and got verbally whacked one by me whenever they implied I didn't know what I was doing or what the law was (thinking of the awful neighbours I had for years when I first moved to current house and they got the legal position quoted straight back at them whenever they came up with a self-aggrandising pack of lies).

So it will help some in the world of paid work - but it also helps in other respects too.

Quite.

Most people over a certain age will have taken an IQ test as it was part of the 11+.

'Passing' the 11+ aka scholarship was not an indication of what type of career a child might aim for, nor was it always a reliable indicator of whether a child should go to an academic school or one aimed at more practical subjects as the pass level was dependent on places in that area.