But I thought it was the OAPs bleeding the country dry? Not people that have contributed sweet FA, except adding to the national student loan debt?
MousseCareless3199 on
A generation that has grown up online, seen influencers live in big houses and drive expensive cars just for making online videos.
They get told they need to go to university to get a good job, they go to university, study for a mediocre degree, graduate, and then find they can only get low-paid work because of wage stagnation and the saturated graduate job market.
They finally realise that life for most is just working 9-5 for 40+ years and then dying. Except this time around they have little chance of owning their own home and starting a family. It’s over for them, unfortunately.
nosdivanion on
Come on, Starmer, take their benefits off them. They’ve contributed nothing, except increasing the countries debt. If we can’t afford to keep the elderly warm (after they’ve paid tax and NI for decades), we can’t afford to pay the bone idle. Let their families keep them!
DoranTheRhythmStick on
Isn’t this basically ‘disabled graduates still disabled, despite having degrees’?
Pale-Imagination-456 on
couple of 100k graduating each year. not particularly surprising that 1% are destined to be long term sick.
xParesh on
If you’re disabled and young you might as well go to university and rack up as much debt as possible.
Have a great time at Uni and screw the tuition fee system back!
LSL3587 on
From the Times
*Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, says that “spiralling inactivity is the greatest employment challenge for a generation” and that reversing it is central to Labour plans to boost economic growth.*
*The report also highlights that Britain has become an international outlier, with sickness up by 27 per cent since the pandemic while it has stayed the same or fallen in the rest of Europe. In Britain one in every 15 people of working age is now off owing to long-term illness, a rate 69 per cent higher than Germany and more than twice Italy’s level.*
*Analysis by BCG of people’s routes into long-term sickness found that students were now one of the biggest contributors. In 2021-22, 63,392 people went straight from being economically inactive because they were studying to being inactive through long-term sickness, up from 36,866 in 2019-20. Once people flowing the other way are subtracted, students pushed up inactivity numbers by 42,300 net, up from 12,700 in 2019-20.*
and pdf of full report available for free on link towards end of that page ‘Read the Report’ green button.
*While the early post-pandemic days saw a rise in those taking early retirement or remaining in education, these trends have reversed. The two main groups now driving the recent rise in long-term sick economically inactive are now: 18-24-year-olds and 50-64-year-olds. The rise among 18-24-year-olds is very concerning given this should be the healthiest group in the population.*
*The UK is an outlier among its peers here. On average EU countries have seen economic inactivity fall by 2.3 percentage points, while the UK’s has risen by 1.1 percentage point since 2020.*
Thr0witallmyway on
When the education system no longer prepares anyone for the harsh realities of life this is what you get.
botchybotchybangbang on
Its been made that way. Apathy to life has been instilled in the young groups, being told they are victims because it’s easier than deal with hard problems they may present. It’s not their fault, they’re kids, it’s society’s fault for not wanting to address real problems with children and being forced to spend all their time working and not raising their kids. Not their fault either. Late stage capitalism. Burning itself through fucking “infinite growth”
SekoPanda on
My thoughts, as someone who did the above:
* We had the pandemic, post-viral syndrome is a thing and hits everybody with different levels of severity. You can be academically successful and still disabled enough that a regular 9-5 is very difficult (Cont. below)
* My generation exists with the knowledge that we have been shafted financially, and that all of the things our parents enjoyed are almost impossible for us to do with any measure of comfort. Basic things like home ownership, starting a family, etc, are prohibitively difficult to accomplish.
* We have to contend with historically stagnant wages, ungrateful bosses, increasingly brutal staff management, layoffs, etc. Nobody’s excited to work anymore, because we’re constantly treated like shit and our employers know they can get away with it because we’re so desperate.
* Every single day, we’re drip-fed content of “perfect” lives, and dissatisfaction is amplified as a result.
* There’s a growing mental health crisis and it’s becoming increasingly hard to use relevant services.
* Universities are for-profit organisations and many knowingly set up their students for failure. The most successful people I know are all those who never attended university, and instead went to trade schools or straight into the workforce and now have 4+ years experience over their peers.
My personal experience:
I did Computer Security, Networking and Forensics at college, then at university, graduating with an Honours degree in 2020. We were told throughout that we were studying to work in an exciting and up-and-coming new field, and assured over and over again that we’d find jobs straight out of academia.
Then we graduated… during Covid. We didn’t get a graduation ceremony, nor any further guidance. We just got our bits of paper and had our access to uni resources revoked a week later. Out of my friend group of about 15 people, only one remained in our field, getting a job in a company their parents owned. The rest found whatever they could, and about half returned to jobs they had before university, feeling like they’d been lied to. Many of us ended up on antidepressants, a couple started drinking. It was devastating.
I myself struggled to find a job because I already had existing health problems. I was diagnosed with severe migraines as a kid and had been living around them for about twenty years by that point. Over the course of about 2 years, I was offered three jobs and entered “provisional” phases that lasted 3-4 months each, but was told that due to my ongoing health issues I wasn’t a good fit. During one exit interview, I was even told that they were actually completely happy with my work, but had found someone who would do my job for an even cheaper salary (I was being paid <£20,000/year to do security benchmarking for a company with over a thousand employees).
Nowadays, I’m better medicated and self-employed, and have no intentions of looking for a “regular” job again. There’s just nothing my generation can achieve through “hard work” that’s worth it anymore.
LazarusOwenhart on
“We boomers didn’t ruin the world, its the youths fault for wanting to do twice the work for half the money and 4 times the debt!”
SojournerInThisVale on
If they’re capable of doing university work then, barring some massive change in their circumstances (such as being hit by a car or the like), I fail to see how they can go onto long term sick
YeetusThatFoetus1 on
I was 23 when I became disabled due to a botched medical procedure. I would give all the money I own to be cured.
FairHalf9907 on
Surely a clear outlier in terms of health of populations is that the tories completely killed the NHS.
CharringtonCross on
Quite aside from anything else there are some shocking facts in the on the face of it.
“There are now a record 2.8 million people off work due to long-term sickness, up 700,000 since Covid-19, with the cost of sickness benefits due to reach £64 billion by the end of the parliament, up £30 billion on before the pandemic.”
“Britain has become an international outlier, with sickness up by 27 per cent since the pandemic while it has stayed the same or fallen in the rest of Europe. In Britain one in every 15 people of working age is now off owing to long-term illness, a rate 69 per cent higher than Germany and more than twice Italy’s level.”
Are we actually more sickly or are we doing something wrong?
Bloom4u on
Friend of friend spent more yrs than most to qualify as a midwife. Her only aim was to go on long term sick leave. She achieved her only goal and will never pay back student debt either. Mums to be will be pleased this asshole ain’t around when you truly need a professional.
16 Comments
But I thought it was the OAPs bleeding the country dry? Not people that have contributed sweet FA, except adding to the national student loan debt?
A generation that has grown up online, seen influencers live in big houses and drive expensive cars just for making online videos.
They get told they need to go to university to get a good job, they go to university, study for a mediocre degree, graduate, and then find they can only get low-paid work because of wage stagnation and the saturated graduate job market.
They finally realise that life for most is just working 9-5 for 40+ years and then dying. Except this time around they have little chance of owning their own home and starting a family. It’s over for them, unfortunately.
Come on, Starmer, take their benefits off them. They’ve contributed nothing, except increasing the countries debt. If we can’t afford to keep the elderly warm (after they’ve paid tax and NI for decades), we can’t afford to pay the bone idle. Let their families keep them!
Isn’t this basically ‘disabled graduates still disabled, despite having degrees’?
couple of 100k graduating each year. not particularly surprising that 1% are destined to be long term sick.
If you’re disabled and young you might as well go to university and rack up as much debt as possible.
Have a great time at Uni and screw the tuition fee system back!
From the Times
*Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, says that “spiralling inactivity is the greatest employment challenge for a generation” and that reversing it is central to Labour plans to boost economic growth.*
*The report also highlights that Britain has become an international outlier, with sickness up by 27 per cent since the pandemic while it has stayed the same or fallen in the rest of Europe. In Britain one in every 15 people of working age is now off owing to long-term illness, a rate 69 per cent higher than Germany and more than twice Italy’s level.*
*Analysis by BCG of people’s routes into long-term sickness found that students were now one of the biggest contributors. In 2021-22, 63,392 people went straight from being economically inactive because they were studying to being inactive through long-term sickness, up from 36,866 in 2019-20. Once people flowing the other way are subtracted, students pushed up inactivity numbers by 42,300 net, up from 12,700 in 2019-20.*
The summary of the report being reported on is here [https://www.bcg.com/united-kingdom/centre-for-growth/insights/improving-our-nations-health-a-whole-of-government-approach-to-tackling-the-causes-of-long-term-sickness-and-economic-inactivity](https://www.bcg.com/united-kingdom/centre-for-growth/insights/improving-our-nations-health-a-whole-of-government-approach-to-tackling-the-causes-of-long-term-sickness-and-economic-inactivity) (free to access)
and pdf of full report available for free on link towards end of that page ‘Read the Report’ green button.
*While the early post-pandemic days saw a rise in those taking early retirement or remaining in education, these trends have reversed. The two main groups now driving the recent rise in long-term sick economically inactive are now: 18-24-year-olds and 50-64-year-olds. The rise among 18-24-year-olds is very concerning given this should be the healthiest group in the population.*
*The UK is an outlier among its peers here. On average EU countries have seen economic inactivity fall by 2.3 percentage points, while the UK’s has risen by 1.1 percentage point since 2020.*
When the education system no longer prepares anyone for the harsh realities of life this is what you get.
Its been made that way. Apathy to life has been instilled in the young groups, being told they are victims because it’s easier than deal with hard problems they may present. It’s not their fault, they’re kids, it’s society’s fault for not wanting to address real problems with children and being forced to spend all their time working and not raising their kids. Not their fault either. Late stage capitalism. Burning itself through fucking “infinite growth”
My thoughts, as someone who did the above:
* We had the pandemic, post-viral syndrome is a thing and hits everybody with different levels of severity. You can be academically successful and still disabled enough that a regular 9-5 is very difficult (Cont. below)
* My generation exists with the knowledge that we have been shafted financially, and that all of the things our parents enjoyed are almost impossible for us to do with any measure of comfort. Basic things like home ownership, starting a family, etc, are prohibitively difficult to accomplish.
* We have to contend with historically stagnant wages, ungrateful bosses, increasingly brutal staff management, layoffs, etc. Nobody’s excited to work anymore, because we’re constantly treated like shit and our employers know they can get away with it because we’re so desperate.
* Every single day, we’re drip-fed content of “perfect” lives, and dissatisfaction is amplified as a result.
* There’s a growing mental health crisis and it’s becoming increasingly hard to use relevant services.
* Universities are for-profit organisations and many knowingly set up their students for failure. The most successful people I know are all those who never attended university, and instead went to trade schools or straight into the workforce and now have 4+ years experience over their peers.
My personal experience:
I did Computer Security, Networking and Forensics at college, then at university, graduating with an Honours degree in 2020. We were told throughout that we were studying to work in an exciting and up-and-coming new field, and assured over and over again that we’d find jobs straight out of academia.
Then we graduated… during Covid. We didn’t get a graduation ceremony, nor any further guidance. We just got our bits of paper and had our access to uni resources revoked a week later. Out of my friend group of about 15 people, only one remained in our field, getting a job in a company their parents owned. The rest found whatever they could, and about half returned to jobs they had before university, feeling like they’d been lied to. Many of us ended up on antidepressants, a couple started drinking. It was devastating.
I myself struggled to find a job because I already had existing health problems. I was diagnosed with severe migraines as a kid and had been living around them for about twenty years by that point. Over the course of about 2 years, I was offered three jobs and entered “provisional” phases that lasted 3-4 months each, but was told that due to my ongoing health issues I wasn’t a good fit. During one exit interview, I was even told that they were actually completely happy with my work, but had found someone who would do my job for an even cheaper salary (I was being paid <£20,000/year to do security benchmarking for a company with over a thousand employees).
Nowadays, I’m better medicated and self-employed, and have no intentions of looking for a “regular” job again. There’s just nothing my generation can achieve through “hard work” that’s worth it anymore.
“We boomers didn’t ruin the world, its the youths fault for wanting to do twice the work for half the money and 4 times the debt!”
If they’re capable of doing university work then, barring some massive change in their circumstances (such as being hit by a car or the like), I fail to see how they can go onto long term sick
I was 23 when I became disabled due to a botched medical procedure. I would give all the money I own to be cured.
Surely a clear outlier in terms of health of populations is that the tories completely killed the NHS.
Quite aside from anything else there are some shocking facts in the on the face of it.
“There are now a record 2.8 million people off work due to long-term sickness, up 700,000 since Covid-19, with the cost of sickness benefits due to reach £64 billion by the end of the parliament, up £30 billion on before the pandemic.”
“Britain has become an international outlier, with sickness up by 27 per cent since the pandemic while it has stayed the same or fallen in the rest of Europe. In Britain one in every 15 people of working age is now off owing to long-term illness, a rate 69 per cent higher than Germany and more than twice Italy’s level.”
Are we actually more sickly or are we doing something wrong?
Friend of friend spent more yrs than most to qualify as a midwife. Her only aim was to go on long term sick leave. She achieved her only goal and will never pay back student debt either. Mums to be will be pleased this asshole ain’t around when you truly need a professional.