Welcome back to the EU!

[Big J]

As someone who's now lived outside of the UK for a few years, my perspective looking back in is that the reasons that the home-grown labour market is so weak are complex and tough to address. Here are a few comparisons between the UK and Sweden:
 

• In the UK, there is far too much focus on academic study, and particularly my generation (I'm 40) was essentially told that if you didn't have a university degree, that you were worthless. Here in Sweden, vocational training is highly valued, and you can start that at 16, and be fully qualified and in the jobs market at 19. As a young person, you have a pot of money that you can take anywhere in Sweden to study anything you want, but as I said, vocational training is valued as Sweden has a strong manufacturing base.
• People tend to stick at jobs for longer here. In the UK, people tend to 'CV build', thinking of jobs as a rung in a ladder, rather than something that they can be content with. This attitude is healthier, I think. 
• In the UK, we have a lot of people in a lot of trades who aren't actually particularly good at what they do (refer back to the lack of training). So to use myself as an example - in the UK, I built a sawmill without formal training, but with lots of self-directed study, I became very good at producing high grade, kiln dried hardwoods. That's my area of expertise. Latterly, I returned back to forestry, driving machines, and I'd describe myself as a decent forwarder operator, but not on the level of the Swedes. Not by a long shot - their training is routinely 2 years long and they are operator mechanics, which is necessary as many of the sites are fairly remote. As such, when I've done bits and bobs of machine work here, it's hard not to feel like an imposter as the locals are just so bloody good at it. This skill base is resultant from the training and the loyalty to jobs.
• In the UK, blue collar jobs have traditionally been looked down upon whereas that's not the case here. Manufacturing is valued and respected and seen as vital. Consequently, in the UK, we've had to import workers to fill these positions as no one from the UK is willing to do them.
• There are many more points, but I would say that the youth in the UK are just afraid of hard work, and I think a lot of that is down to general poor health. My daughters' school has over 300 pupils. I cannot recall having seen a single obese kid. It's rare to see seriously overweight people here and often they are German (there are heaps of Germans here). Processed food is more expensive, ready meals are largely non-existant and people are more physically active. 

I'm not trying to shit on the UK here, rather, seeking to illustrate that there are systemic issues with the UK labour market that mean that there are not the home-grown kids to fill the vacancies for jobs that we want to keep in the UK. Either the jobs get exported or the workers get imported. 

[Stere]

Quote

ahh the old ‘uneducated’ thing coming up again. People used that to insult people who voted for brexit, then they used the same argument against people who refused the jabs. It’s a favourite tactic of people who can’t understand why someone would do something different to them, and one of the quickest way to lose an argument as far as I’m concerned. It’s right up there with using the word ‘sheeple’. 

 

 

Well its very  often  true.

 

[GarethM]

23 minutes ago, Stere said:

Well its very  often  true.

 

So by your own statistics, the higher your level of education the worse you vote.

 

As you've just proved those with a degree or higher are proportionally more likely to vote like turkeys for Christmas dinner ?.

[Mike Hill]

Don't you live in Sweden's "empty quarter" J ?.

 

What's the population density in the kommune you call home?

[Big J]

4 minutes ago, Mike Hill said:

Don't you live in Sweden's "empty quarter" J ?.

 

What's the population density in the kommune you call home?

 

Yep. It's delightfully quiet. 12 people per square kilometer in our Kommun

[Steven P]

As I get older 12 people per km sounds more and more appealing!

[Mike Hill]

34 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

Yep. It's delightfully quiet. 12 people per square kilometer in our Kommun

 

Sweden needs all the workers it can get.

 

Try getting a tradesman to do anything near a population center and I think you might have different ideas.

 

Stockholm,Göteburg,Lund,Malmö, kin anywhere your going to struggle getting a reputable Swedish tradie.  Unless you want to hire "Blocket Hassan" and pay him reddies.

 

 

[devon TWiG]

13 hours ago, sime42 said:

 

Fair enough, I stand corrected. Thanks. Newlyn looks and feels bigger, but I had no ideas of the values involved. Is it Brixham where they also land a large volume of Brown Crab? Which then gets stuck on a lorry up to Heathrow, and flown straight over to China to be sold for a fortune. Or maybe that was Salcombe.

 

Crazy stat about Harrods.

Brixhams most valuable catch is Cuttlefish !!  and virtually all gets exported ...in fact the UK exports 70% of its catch and we import 70% of the seafood we eat !!

[sime42]

Bonkers isn't it?! Such is the absurdity of global trade sometimes.

 

To be fair though, a lot of that is due to the very narrow tastes of the UK when it comes to seafood. If it ain't Cod or Salmon then people generally won't touch it. All the more interesting stuff gets exported to Europe and beyond where they love it. Like the Cuttlefish . Meanwhile we're so desperate for boring old whitefish that we import farmed Basa and the like all the way from Vietnam.

 

 

[openspaceman]

45 minutes ago, sime42 said:

Bonkers isn't it?! Such is the absurdity of global trade sometimes.

 

To be fair though, a lot of that is due to the very narrow tastes of the UK when it comes to seafood. If it ain't Cod or Salmon then people generally won't touch it. All the more interesting stuff gets exported to Europe and beyond where they love it. Like the Cuttlefish . Meanwhile we're so desperate for boring old whitefish that we import farmed Basa and the like all the way from Vietnam.

 

 

I would definitely cook it but the preparation puts me off, cuttlefish fillets?