Low status jobs: for ‘failures and foreigners’ only?
In tonight’s Analysis programme I investigate two related issues about low skilled jobs. How, on the one hand, these ‘bad jobs’ have not disappeared in Britain, as many economists predicted they would, and yet, on the other hand, how so many British people have been discouraged from taking them.
Making the Best of a Bad Job
- AVAILABILITY: EVEN IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY, THE MOST BASIC JOBS SURVIVE. OFFICES STILL NEED TO BE CLEANED, SUPERMARKET SHELVES STACKED, AND CARE HOME RESIDENTS LOOKED AFTER.DAVID GOODHART CONSIDERS WHETHER THE DECLINING STATUS OF BASIC JOBS CAN BE HALTED AND EVEN REVERSED.SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE PRIORITISED WIDENING ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION TO TRY TO DRIVE SOCIAL MOBILITY, WITHOUT GIVING MUCH THOUGHT TO THE IMPACT THIS HAS ON THE EXPECTATIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE WHO, FOR WHATEVER REASON, ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THAT PATH.BUT EVEN IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY, THE MOST BASIC JOBS SURVIVE. OFFICES STILL NEED TO BE CLEANED, SUPERMARKET SHELVES STACKED, AND CARE HOME RESIDENTS LOOKED AFTER.
David Goodhart considers whether the declining status of basic jobs can be halted and even reversed.
Successive governments have prioritised widening access to higher education to try to drive social mobility, without giving much thought to the impact this has on the expectations of young people who, for whatever reason, are not going to take that path.
But even in a knowledge-based economy, the most basic jobs survive. Offices still need to be cleaned, supermarket shelves stacked, and care home residents looked after.
The best employers know how to design these jobs to make them more satisfying. Are politicians finally waking up to the problem?
downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/20130220-analysis-bad-jobs.pdf
The Sutton Trust
The main objective of the Sutton Trust is to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and increase social mobility.
The Sutton Trust - Sutton Trust
Men for Tomorrow
There are growing signs in Britain today of men failing to contribute adequately to the communities they live in. In the UK, men have increasingly been seen as marginal to family life. Men for Tomorrow suspects that this may underly their growing failure to contribute adequately to the communities they live in. Family men make better citizens. MfT will carry out research to explore this, and produce social policy suggestions to alleviate current problems.
“It is widely understood that de-industrialisation and the reduction in jobs depending mainly on manual labour have increased male unemployment in recent decades. What is less appreciated is that this has been aggravated by rising levels of basic non-employability, absent fatherhood, crime and suicide; all of which can be seen as indicators of a lost generation of men.
Men for Tomorrow
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