Where are all the unemployed?

[Purple]

These are not people "putting their feet up". These are people prepared to work , looking for opportunity, willing to learn, trying to impress, etc...in order to get sustainable employment.

A lot of people are doing a “FAS scheme’ because they are forced to do it. Let’s not pretend that they are all trying to get into/ back into a full time job.
Your point in the previous post is well made; childcare costs are a major barrier to entry into the labour market.

 

[odyssey06]

These are not people "putting their feet up". These are people prepared to work , looking for opportunity, willing to learn, trying to impress, etc...in order to get sustainable employment.

We are at full employment. If they want a job get one. Curiously I cant find good figures on the sustainable employment rate from these schemes.... or how long people stay in the system or take repeat courses.

Until they are in real jobs they are in the category of not working.

 

[Protocol]

Have a read of Barra Roantree's lecture:

https://www.esri.ie/sites/default/files/media/file-uploads/2020-01/Slides_1.pdf

He used to work in the IFS in the UK, now at the ESRI.

 

[Protocol]

Why do we have so many households with zero market income?

Why do we have so many VLWI households?

Why do we have so many adults who declare themselves disabled?

Why do we lead Europe in lone parenthood?



Three possible answers:

(1) An endogeneity problem - the welfare state that is so effective at reducing poverty itself encourages people to not work

(2) a caring issue - we choose to care for many people informally at home, and the system encourages this, rather than in a formal welfare state, so therefore these households have less or no market income

(3) regarding the VLWI issue, our inactive adults tend to live with other inactive adults, so they remain VLWI. If they lived with an active adult, that person would lift them out of VLWI

 

[WolfeTone]

We are at full employment

Thats was my thinking at the start of this thread, until you suggested that unemployment figures could not be relied upon and that in fact if the people working in job activation schemes were included in the figures, then the rate would be a few points higher.
I took it we were at full employment, or approaching. You seemed to dismiss this at the start, suggesting the real figure to be closer to 8% or even higher (ie not full employment).

Curiously I cant find good figures on the sustainable employment rate from these schemes....

They are not sustainable jobs. Schemes like Job Bridge effectively get people to work without payment from the employer who benefits from their labour. It is not sustainable.

Until they are in real jobs they are in the category of not working.

Can you define a real job?
Tens of thousands of people in this country work in a voluntary capacity, either in addition to other paid work or just in their spare capacity.
I would define a job as any monetary consideration offered and accepted between two parties in return for services or labour provided.
If you are not getting paid, its not a job, but dont make the mistake to think it isnt work.

 

[WolfeTone]

(1) An endogeneity problem - the welfare state that is so effective at reducing poverty itself encourages people to not work

I don't disagree with the sentiment, suffice the language of "encourages people not to work".
I take the view, with the exception of a tiny cohort of people (typically criminal element of society - albeit they will also work at their illegal endeavours) that every abled body is prepared to work.
The issue is the pay and conditions of work.
If unemployment benefit is €188 pw, and a job offer for 39hrs a week offers €450 I think most people would take it. But if such a job involved €200 in childcare and €20 bus fares, then there is a problem. It is a disincentive not to work, not an encouragement not to work.

Its no different to high income earners. Offered a job for €150,000 pa most people would take it. But add in the condition of high taxes on income and it can act as a disincentive not to work.
So its not people "putting up their feet", as some have suggested, but simply the conditions on offer.

(2) a caring issue - we choose to care for many people informally at home, and the system encourages this, rather than in a formal welfare state, so therefore these households have less or no market income

You may have answered Q1, in part.

(3) regarding the VLWI issue, our inactive adults tend to live with other inactive adults, so they remain VLWI. If they lived with an active adult, that person would lift them out of VLWI

Im not disputing this, just querying the application of this sentiment in practical real-life terms.

 

[odyssey06]

Thats was my thinking at the start of this thread, until you suggested that unemployment figures could not be relied upon and that in fact if the people working in job activation schemes were included in the figures, then the rate would be a few points higher.
I took it we were at full employment, or approaching. You seemed to dismiss this at the start, suggesting the real figure to be closer to 8% or even higher (ie not full employment).

I was turning your full employment argument back against you. On multiple threads you were making the point that we are at full employment.
I was pointing out the number of hidden 'unemployed' or rather cohorts that are not employed, the numbers of which seem to have spiked since the last recession and some of which in other EU countries would be classed in the unemployed. Whether we are at full employment or not, we seem to be at the peak of this economic cycle and nobody seems all that bothered about the numbers in those cohorts or what is being done for their employment prospects (or rather the success rate of these employment schemes in putting trainees into the workforce).

Can you define a real job?
Tens of thousands of people in this country work in a voluntary capacity, either in addition to other paid work or just in their spare capacity.
I would define a job as any monetary consideration offered and accepted between two parties in return for services or labour provided.
If you are not getting paid, its not a job, but dont make the mistake to think it isnt work.

I don't know what work versus real job has to do with this thread. Cutting your own grass or painting your house or looking after your own kids is hard work too and if you were doing it for someone else you'd expect to be paid for it. Obviously we are talking about paid employment and anything else seems like a rabbit hole.

 

[Purple]

Whether we are at full employment or not, we seem to be at the peak of this economic cycle and nobody seems all that bothered about the numbers in those cohorts or what is being done for their employment prospects.

The question in my mind is what happens when we pump money into an economy with no employment capacity to absorb it? Wage inflation, which is the main cause of price inflation, would be my first guess.

I don't know what work versus real job has to do with this thread. Cutting your own grass or painting your house or looking after your own kids is hard work too and if you were doing it for someone else you'd expect to be paid for it. Obviously we are talking about paid employment and anything else seems like a rabbit hole.

I spent the weekend batch cooking and baking for the coming week as well as doing the washing and ironing. I didn't realise that meant I didn't have to go to work this week.

 

[odyssey06]

The question in my mind is what happens when we pump money into an economy with no employment capacity to absorb it? Wage inflation, which is the main cause of price inflation, would be my first guess.

What seems to happen here more is that the higher wages draw in more people to Dublin, the wage rises level off, but the rents and and cost of living increases.

 

[Purple]

What seems to happen here more is that the higher wages draw in more people to Dublin, the wage rises level off, but the rents and and cost of living increases.

Cost of living is a result of labour costs. Everyone getting a pay rise just makes things more expensive.

 

[Protocol]

I don't disagree with the sentiment, suffice the language of "encourages people not to work".
I take the view, with the exception of a tiny cohort of people (typically criminal element of society - albeit they will also work at their illegal endeavours) that every abled body is prepared to work.

This is false, and perhaps naive.

I agree with you that many people rationally choose long-term welfare, as the loss of benefits/HAP/medical card, plus the costs of childcare, etc., means it does not make sense to take up employment.

Anybody who lives in Ireland will know that there are also many thousands of people who choose LT welfare for other reasons.

Let's take 5 people I know on LT welfare, and I realise this is anecdotal:

(1) Person A on DA, aged in 40s, I know this person well, has worked before, but never long-term in any job, has skills/talents, but perhaps has mild personality/social issues that make them "somewhat incompatible with regular 9-5 type employment". Spends a lot of time playing video games.

A tougher/stricter welfare state would refuse benefits, as person A is an able-bodied adult, who could do some job.

Now, you could argue, and I accept this argument, that this person is genuinely disabled, fair enough.

(2) Person B, I don't know this person as well, long-term on JSA, alcoholic I think, I suspect would have difficult holding down steady employment, very good golfer. Seetac have engaged with them.

Again, a tougher/stricter welfare state, like the USA, would refuse benefits, as person A is an able-bodied adult, who could do some job.

(3) Person C, aged 60 approx, has talents, very sociable, runs two websites, in pub most nights, does not believe in capitalism or regular employment, not on welfare all their life, was on JSA recently, now on DA, and I quote directly from them "it's great now I'm on DA, as I won't be challenged to find employment like on JSA"

This is one reason why the numbers on DA continue to climb, you will be left alone, and Seetac won't be after you.

Now, you could argue, and I accept this argument, that person C is genuinely disabled, fair enough.

(4) D and E are married, and related to me.

Long-term on DA (not disabled) and JSA. They say "you would be stupid to work"

Nixer brings in 40,000 gross before costs (not 40k net)

Got 100,000 in 3rd level fees and grants

Drive an Audi Q5




Now, I don't have a very wide circle of people, and yet even I know 2-3 people who have chosen long-term welfare.

So it is reasonable to say that there are 100,000 people minimum on JSA, DA, OPFP, CA, etc., who have chosen long-term welfare as a lifestyle choice.

This is one reason why we have so many households with zero market income, and so many VLWI households.

 

[WolfeTone]

On multiple threads you were making the point that we are at full employment.

We are at full employment.

Can you confirm, are we at full employment or not? You seem to want to be able to call it boths ways - yes, we are at full employment and, no, we are not at full employment, to suit your narrative at any given time.

Obviously we are talking about paid employment

Great, im happy to accept that we are talking about paid employment.
So people who get up to go to work on job 'activation' schemes, like job bridge, are not paid by their employers. Instead, the State continues to pay welfare.
I take it you consider these people unemployed, not in a real job, and part of the society wanting to put their feet up?
I dont, I consider them people actively trying to find sustainable work and not wanting to be dependent long term on welfare.

 

[WolfeTone]

Person A

Aside from any genuine disability, you haven't painted a very attractive picture for employers to recruit.
It is part of the equation that tends to get overlooked in any employment relationship, offer and acceptance.

Person B

Again, from the perspective of any prospective employer, trying to run a business, trying to make ends meet, trying to fill a job vacancy with a hard-working, reliable person, does the characteristic of 'alcoholic' feature highly?

D and E

These people are working "Nixer brings in 40,000 gross".
They are working outside of the system and apparently fraudulently so. I have already referenced a criminal element to be excluded from the overall discussion.

 

[odyssey06]

Can you confirm, are we at full employment or not? You seem to want to be able to call it boths ways - yes, we are at full employment and, no, we are not at full employment, to suit your narrative at any given time.

Great, im happy to accept that we are talking about paid employment.
So people who get up to go to work on job 'activation' schemes, like job bridge, are not paid by their employers. Instead, the State continues to pay welfare.
I take it you consider these people unemployed, not in a real job, and part of the society wanting to put their feet up?
I dont, I consider them people actively trying to find sustainable work and not wanting to be dependent long term on welfare.

You are the one claiming we are at full employment. I am quoting you. Certainly we are in a time of rising employment, and it should be questioned re: the need for so many of these activation schemes at such a time. In the context of this thread, they are part of the real unemployed, or we can call them the 'not employed', whatever our employment figures are showing. Taken into conjunction with the number of positions being filled by citizens from other EU countries and non EU, there are employment opportunities there at all levels of the employment sector of trained and untrained.

So they are not employed, not in a real job and some of them - perhaps most - are using it as a means to dodge real work.
Someone straight out of school doing these courses is not employed, but I would not draw the conclusion that they are putting their feet up; or someone in such schemes after a redundancy.
But anyone who has done multiple of these courses in succession is much more likely to be in the latter category.
If we were paying college students and paid their fees for as many courses as they want, I would lump those doing multiple courses into the same likelihood.
Really, we need to see the success rate of these schemes to make a proper determination of where the % lies, but it's not 100% one way or the other. But in the current climate it is a valid question to ask, and also reasonable to consider what is our real unemployment rate versus our EU counterparts.

 

[Sunny]

Great, im happy to accept that we are talking about paid employment.
So people who get up to go to work on job 'activation' schemes, like job bridge, are not paid by their employers. Instead, the State continues to pay welfare.
I take it you consider these people unemployed, not in a real job, and part of the society wanting to put their feet up?
I dont, I consider them people actively trying to find sustainable work and not wanting to be dependent long term on welfare.

This is why threads like this are pointless. There have been plenty of them and all of them end up the same way. Someone will start claiming that not all unemployed people are the same and are trying to find work when everyone else will point out that we are not talking about everyone. But it is still a valid discussion if we talking about a sizable minority and not the majority. Disability allowance is abused. Social Housing is abused. Medical cards are abused. Job Seekers is abused. Single Parents is abused. Doesn't matter if it one person doing to it or 100000. We are entitled to demand that there is zero tolerance without being made out to be right wing monsters.

Not one person here will have a problem with anyone seeking work getting help from welfare. I myself have been in that position. After 4 months of the demoralising step of collecting a weekly payment from the post office, I took a minimum wage job for 6 months working alongside teenagers who laughed at me rather than take the jobseekers allowance. Buts lets not pretend that every person receiving welfare is looking for work. Whether that is because they wont because they don't want to or welfare is too attractive is immaterial. There are people in this country and in every country who can work but choose not to.

By the way Jobbridge was closed years ago and rightly so.

 

[Purple]

Well said Sunny.

 

[WolfeTone]

But it is still a valid discussion if we talking about a sizable minority and not the majority. Disability allowance is abused. Social Housing is abused. Medical cards are abused. Job Seekers is abused. Single Parents is abused. Doesn't matter if it one person doing to it or 100000.

Yes, and I have already pointed to a criminal element, which is what you appear to be referring to - those that abuse the system.
I have never denied the existence of such. The extent of that abuse is up for debate.
My view is that it not near the extent that others would like to portray.
And as job bridge was closed, rightly so, then the question of the 5.2% full employment being manipulated to avoid counting people on job activation schemes like job bridge does not hold up.

I agree, there is little to be gained in any further discussion that takes official figures and academic research to propagate a narrative that is nowhere to be found, anywhere, in those official figures or that academic research.

 

[Protocol]

Have a look at table 2.14 below to see our employment rates:

Economy Measuring Ireland's Progress 2018 - Central Statistics Office

www.cso.ie

We are below average, and well down the league table, due to the high level of joblessness in Ireland.

 

[Protocol]

Also see table 2.18 for the jobless household data.

The situation has thankfully improved, we are no longer above the EA average, but we are still above the EU average.

 

[Purple]

Also see table 2.18 for the jobless household data.

The situation has thankfully improved, we are no longer above the EA average, but we are still above the EU average.

What stands out there for me is how *GNI as a percentage of GDP is declining which shows how reliant we are on a few Multinationals to carry our economy. Was the construction industry ever such a disproportionate part of the economy?