Double post

I only have a levels and never went to uni. I don't buy the fact that it's impossible to get a job either. Yes, in the last few years I have gone a month or so here and there without work, but as soon as I have applied for things I have had interviews and got a job in no time. I do believe people who use the excuses they do either don't want a job for £6+ an hour or just simply can't be bothered working.

I know a lot of people who are/have turned down jobs because they think the pay is rubbish. Well what do they expect, a generous starting salary straight away. I started at work on about 5 and half pound an hour, not exactly great. But through working my backside off I'm now up around £11 in 6 years time with another decent pay rise due within the next 6 months. I've seen plenty of young lads like me arrive at my work doing the same role I did for same pay and instead of busting their balls they took the approach 'i'm getting paid little I'll work little'. Last year 2 lads turned down the opportunity of jobs with the other company are owner owns in favour of going on the dole.
From my experience i know more people preferred taking dole over working and its annoys me that the government get all the blame for someone's situation. Sure they aren't perfect but in most cases neither is the individual but of course people don't like looking in the mirror.

2.67 million unemployed. 473,000 vacancies. Where do the 2.2 million who are left go to find a job?

Well as are company is being taken over ATM and relocating some people are taking redundancy even though its only an extra 2-3 miles to travel. Why? Because they see the easy opportunity of getting around £10,000 without having to work for it. So like I said, a lot of those 2.2 million won't really be devastated at not having to work even if they like to claim they do. How many of those are honest individuals and how many have 'Jeremy Kyle' potential?

What does their potential or attitude matter? If there are 2.7 million people without jobs and only 470,000 of them could possibly get a job what does it matter what the other 2.2 million are like? They couldn't get a job anyway because there arent enough. I sympathise with your argument in that, yes there are some who don't want a job, but comments like "people just don't want to work" are just lazy stereotypes simply based simply upon your/Harrigans anecdotal evidence.

I started work at £940.








A year

And surely banding about numbers like the 2.2 million left unemployed is equally lazy just to create newspaper/tv news headlines that will grab peoples attention. From 2000 -2006 well before recession become a buzz word the unemployment averaged around 1.5 million, so really the headlines could read '700,000 extra left unemployed during the UK's financial crisis'. But then 2.2 million grabs peoples attention much more than 700,000 now doesn't it.

How is that relevant other than in proving its harder than it used to be to find a job?
How is quoting the official unemployment and vacancy figures when describing the amount of unemployed people compared to vacancies, lazy?

Because figures don't show how many want work and how many are happy to accept dole.

All I am saying is that I have never had any problems, and i'm not qualified for much. If you want to work, you will find it.

So are you saying that at least 2.2 million out of those 2.67 million who are unemployed don't want to work? Because if it's less than that, then it wouldn't matter how much they wanted to work, would it?

But you have A-Levels, that's more than a lot of people have. You presumably, have a decent work history with no significant gaps. You, I assume, are fairly young. You might have better self-esteem/confidence than other people. You might have a better support network around you. You might know how to tailor your CV/applications/interviews compared to other people. There are plenty of reasons why employers don't employ people and it's not always down to lack of effort.
Plus, as I said to The Printer, even if all available vacancies were filled it would leave 2.2 million without a job, regardless of their skills, abilities or willingness to work.

I'm confused...

There are 2.7 million people unemployed - right?

...and 473,000 vacant jobs?

Why..????

I could understand if there were 2.2 million unemployed and no vacancies but why aren't the 473,000 being filled by the current unemployed populous?

I can only think of two reasons

1) The employers that hold these 473,000 vacant positions feel that none of the 2.7 million currently unemployed have the skills, attitude and ability to fill these potions.

2) The 2.7 million unemployed can't be ar[sizes[/sizeed apply for said vacancies.

Could someone explain for a simpleton like me?

I would imagine its because there is a gap in between a job becoming vacant/being advertised as vacant and that job being filled. It generally takes a few weeks from advertising the job, getting all the applications/CV's in, holding interviews, then making a decision. So the vacancies stat will be a snapshot or an average of how many vacancies were out there. In this case for the 3 months up to February 2012.
Im not an expert in these stats but I would imagine that the majority of these 400k vacancies would be filled but then different job vacancies fill the gap for the next set of 3 month stats.
On the ONS website there is a graph which shows the number of vacancies has stayed pretty similar over the last 2 years. Fluctuating between around 450k & 500k.