UK Young people are rejecting work. Why?

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
1735072654416.png

“I’m considering living in the wild, just trotting around the globe with little money,” reads a post on a Reddit forum for Neets. “I was working [in] a retail store and the first few hours were OK, then I had to deal with customers,” reads another. “I packed my bag and just left.”

In this forum, a community of 44,000 people from around the world share advice and discuss the challenges of being a Neet — an acronym for not in education, employment or training.

It is not just an online phenomenon. “I could never go back to working a normal job again,” Morgan, who left his role in 2020 and asked to remain anonymous, told the FT. “With inflation and rents rising, the incentive to devote all of my time to an employer to barely scrape by didn’t make sense any more.”

In the third quarter of this year, official UK figures showed 13 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds were Neets, nearly 1mn people. Two-fifths of these were looking for work; the rest were “economically inactive”, neither working nor looking, opting out of the labour market completely.

This puts the number of economically inactive young people close to its highest level — a similar story in Europe and the US, where more than 1 in 10 young people are Neets.

While the term first gained traction in 1990s UK government policy, which sought to help older teenagers into work, it has since been adopted internationally and by a wider subculture of economically inactive people. Reddit’s Neet forum includes people in their 50s; recent posts depict a “self-loathing man of inaction late 20s/early 30s” or ask if “30+ NEETS [can] turn their life around?”

After starting out as a car salesman ten years ago, Morgan, now 30, was forced out of work by depression and an illness that took him in and out of hospital. When he recovered, the pandemic had shut his industry down: he opted out of work, using the time to teach himself how to repair old cars and post videos online.

“My time to develop my interests was worth more than I could make working, even if it wasn’t making me any money,” he says. But eventually the bills began to pile up. “I was put out on the street for unpaid rent. I lived in my car for a few days before a friend took me in. I’m lucky that’s where I am today.”

Josh, 24, dropped out of university after deciding it wasn’t worth the money. “I went on to have a few retail jobs but I found it tough to interact with people in the workplace because of my social anxiety,” he told the FT. I’ve moved back in with my parents now, who are able to support me. I help my mum around the house and I’m trying to teach myself programming.”

Louise Murphy, economist at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, says mental health is one driver of rising Neet numbers: in 20 years, the proportion of young people reporting a disorder such as anxiety or bipolar has increased from a quarter to a third. This makes them more likely to be out of work: an RF report found between 2018 and 2022, 21 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds with mental health problems were jobless, compared with 13 per cent of those without.

Niall O’Higgins, an International Labour Organization economist, suggests younger people are also disenchanted with the quality of jobs on offer, and are “lacking prospects for development, workplace training and the ability to build up their options”.

Employers make themselves more attractive, he says, by offering flexibility and support, including “exploring alternatives in terms of organisation of work”. In a survey of Gen Z workers by talent sourcing platform A.Team, 80 per cent said the four-day working week should be the norm, 60 per cent would like a hybrid working model, and half valued training opportunities.

Murphy says nurturing relationships can have a significant impact. “When we asked what young people would change about the world of work, they didn’t ask for big, flashy reforms. They wanted to have more human, understanding managers.” This might include additions like one-to-one catch-ups which are not the norm in all professions.

“I resent the accusation that young people don’t want to work,” Morgan says. “Everyone wants to contribute, but the reward for devoting your time to doing so is no longer worth it in many cases.”

All rights reserved.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024.

Financial Times
Archive (December 23 2024)
 
Click to expand...
Kids have been lazy and stupid since kids were invented hundreds of years ago. Don't need a fucking article on it.
 
Rootless Cosmopolitan said:
Edit: it simply is going to collapse, one way or another. If we resist cutting benefits to old people for too long, they’re simply all going to end up on the streets dying in the cold when the shit hits the fan. If the system they put into place were at all sustainable, we wouldn’t be arguing about this. But it’s not, so we are. Idk what exactly indignant KFers propose to do, but I suppose The Usual People will be on their side shouting any solution down as “mean” right up until the whole thing collapses.
Click to expand...
And then they'll be blaming "capitalism," "the free market," and a lack of socialism. Screenshot this post.
 
Have seen this from different angles. In the military, had some great jobs, got a lot of responsibility much younger than my civilian counterparts. Was not just allowed but expected to use my brain.

After retiring from the military did various things. Only had one civilian job that compared with the things I did in the service, where I was allowed and expected to use my brain. The other jobs were mundane, to varying extents, but provided a paycheck. Retired for good ten years ago.

Both my kids started working as teenagers, displayed a very good work ethic. They are doing well.

These days see some of Generation Z who have the work ethic, and sadly, some who can barely make any effort but want everything handed to them for what little effort they make. No idea what they will do when those gibs run out, and don't care.

Some might say they will exchange work for room and board. Please...unless you are an attractive female willing to work those holes several times a week on demand it won't happen. You cannot do enough 'regular' work to justify the room and board.

The harder you work, the more luck you have. Stop bitching and make an effort. The world does NOT owe you a living.
 
Last edited:
9 times out of 10 when you get some corpofag complaining that "no-one wants to work", the position they're trying to fill is some backbreaking minimum wage job with a zero-hour contract, or some other similarly dogshit job. And rather than increase wages or offer workplace benefits that actually make said backbreaking work worth it, they run crying to the government demanding that they let another million jeets in to act as indentured servants, because to a jeet anything beats dying of dysentery in a Gujarati slum. Because apparently the "job market" is the one market where the concept of competition is taboo.
 
Jimmy Dean Bowl said:
I'm sure you'll feel exactly the same when you're elderly and getting shafted out of your pension.
Click to expand...
I mean, they're stopping public pensions so we're already shafted by the government (as per usual), and I doubt private pensions will outlast the upcoming crash, considering most of them are based on stocks, no matter how diversifed.
 
Unyielding Stupidity said:
9 times out of 10 when you get some corpofag complaining that "no-one wants to work", the position they're trying to fill is some backbreaking minimum wage job with a zero-hour contract, or some other similarly dogshit job. And rather than increase wages or offer workplace benefits that actually make said backbreaking work worth it, they run crying to the government demanding that they let another million jeets in to act as indentured servants, because to a jeet anything beats dying of dysentery in a Gujarati slum. Because apparently the "job market" is the one market where the concept of competition is taboo.
Click to expand...
I really need to count all the times i've seen a job that goes with "We pay people up to 25$ an hour because shit sucks but we'll start you off at minimum wage until you've been with us for a year or two."
may as well lump them in with this
 
Unyielding Stupidity said:
9 times out of 10 when you get some corpofag complaining that "no-one wants to work", the position they're trying to fill is some backbreaking minimum wage job with a zero-hour contract, or some other similarly dogshit job
Click to expand...
It's 10 times out of 10, not 9. Even then they get absolutely swamped with applications, but they also then never hire anyone, or underhire like crazy, or hire people on retarded spastic hours like 3 a week, that aren't sustainable, or hire in waves and then let loads of people go, and then hire in waves. Our tax system incentivises this. It also doesn't help that everywhere is essentially the same as everywhere else in terms of entry level, no business wants to train anyone, and no business will invest in their workers. You just get boomer tier whining about how people won't accept $4 a hour with no chance of increase for 3+ years, so you can 'earn' the opportunity.

Your business is overvaluing itself. That's the reality of the matter. You run a business that relies on the government to import infinity slave caste browns. The people are on benefits from the government, the businesses are on benefits from the government. The economy has been transformed into the government circulating money around hole digging companies, and hole filling companies. With the only winners being clusters of people that the government allows to hoover up any actual capital and lock it away so they can patiently wait for the wheels to come off the truck; and then leverage the assets that the government has helped them obtain, to enslave the people.

Also there are a lot of lazy workshy fuckers as well lol. That is true, but I like ranting.
 
Education costs are too high, cost of living is too high.... employers won't pay enough. People have given up.
 
Last edited:
Oy vey, just put in 50 hours a week (salaried, of course!) for $14/hr for the next 60 years, you lazy Gen Z'ers!

Productivity has grown 4:1 vs wages in the last 50 years. This doesn't even mention the fact that benefits at jobs are garbage, the cost of living has left the solar system, and infinite browns have made it so that there's no future for young people to have a stake in.

There's a disturbing amount of corporate whores in this thread.
 
Bog-standard Poster said:
Kill yourself. The old people worked with their blood, sweat and tears, lived through more poverty and bullshit that you can imagine and earned every fucking penny of their pension.

You couldn't even last without the internet, let alone no electricity or water. Kill yourself.
Click to expand...
My previous job the boss was someone who was formerly a highschool teacher and he started his plumbing career as a moonlighting gig. Eventually started his own company with a rolodex of clients who he knew from the local university. He put work in while building his business up, clearing drain lines and running pipe, sure, but he fundamentally did not understand what the fuck he was doing and why the people making the most money for him were valued by the clients. There is absolutely room for someone to both work hard and be retarded, and then after they think they've figured it out to work hard at being retarded. There's a reason that nobody worth a damn still works for him anymore.
 
Young people reject work because they can become leeches and live of government gibs. That or they become homeless junkies.
Dawdler said:
I see no reason why you should be a human forklift at 30+ instead of working an office job (or any age at that matter).
Click to expand...
Then who'll do that job? Jeets? Sandniggers? Beaners? Niggers? You can't have your cake and eat it too, either society accepts the existence of tough jobs or you import people to do them.
 
Last edited:
Chunky Salsa said:
It's 10 times out of 10, not 9. Even then they get absolutely swamped with applications, but they also then never hire anyone, or underhire like crazy, or hire people on retarded spastic hours like 3 a week, that aren't sustainable, or hire in waves and then let loads of people go, and then hire in waves. Our tax system incentivises this. It also doesn't help that everywhere is essentially the same as everywhere else in terms of entry level, no business wants to train anyone, and no business will invest in their workers. You just get boomer tier whining about how people won't accept $4 a hour with no chance of increase for 3+ years, so you can 'earn' the opportunity.
Click to expand...
This is the Gordian Knot of the issue. Hiring should be as simple a picking a class in video games and working should be a steady stream of advancement. Instead, it's all undefined gatekeeping and figuring out how to make rent or utilities+homeowner's tax+income tax+home and car insurance. Said by people who sneer at Uber drivers and Youtubers. So, of course people are coming to the conclusion that working is bullshit and it's better to max out government bennies.

The reason why the Democratic party won't go away despite its retardation is because Conservatives are an incredibly selfish group of people who do not value the body politic.
 
Easy to say “fuck work” when mommy and daddy still pay their way for everything while they’re well into their 20s.

Nobody likes working. If I could live comfortably sitting around on my ass enjoying my time as I want with no worries, you bet your ass I would. I work because I have no desire to be homeless, I work so I can afford what I want and live my life without being an adult loser mooching off my parents, and I work because I have a sense of self-pride and I’d feel like a failure not being able to support myself and having to rely on others for my survival.

Zoomers are just lazy fucks with enabling, equally childish parents.
 
Just for kicks, I'd love it if each poster in thread had their IRL age and geographic location attached to their comments. I want to see how much of the complaining is zoomers in urban environments and how much of the scoffing is boomers approaching retirement in suburbia.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom