Give us a job Guv!

[papasmurf]

So that's why so many kids in the cities are wielding machetes? They're practicing! Bless them!

Wielding is not skilled in the use of them.

[T00ts]

No they would not, crop picking is for the very fit and the young.  Older people would not last an hour or keep up with the required production rates. It is also despite the propaganda a skilled job. I would not want someone next to me wielding a machete picking cauliflowers, they would would probably injure themselves, someone else or because they could not keep up end up getting trapped in the machinery following close behind.

So that's why so many kids in the cities are wielding machetes? They're practicing! Bless them!

[papasmurf]

Of course they f**king well would.

No they would not, crop picking is for the very fit and the young.  Older people would not last an hour or keep up with the required production rates. It is also despite the propaganda a skilled job. I would not want someone next to me wielding a machete picking cauliflowers, they would would probably injure themselves, someone else or because they could not keep up end up getting trapped in the machinery following close behind.

[Borchester]

Baff you obviously know precisely zero about fruit picking. Most people over 40 would not last an hour.

Of course they fucking well would.

You obviously know precisely zero about F@@@ all.

Most people over 40 know all that needs to be known about fruit picking, which is that it is best left to youngsters who don't mind the low wages and enjoy the chinniking of the fruit orchards.

We are about to set off to the allotment where I will instruct Madam in the mysteries of apple and pear trees pruning. It should take about ten minutes

[papasmurf]

If you cut their money off, they will pick fruit.

Baff you obviously know precisely zero about fruit picking. Most people over 40 would not last an hour.

[Baff]

Well by all accounts Sunak is suggesting that those who have taken 'early' retirement might  un-retire. Well that's very nice. How is he going to remove the youth culture that seems to dominate so many places, or is he imagining that they are going to fill the hospitality vacancies, fruit picking etc?

I just wonder how big the incentives will be to encourage this.

If you cut their money off, they will pick fruit.
That is the big incentive. Hunger.


I unretired in 2008.

I actually prefer no pressure jobs, hospitality and farm work included.
It's like being a kid again.

I don't need as much money as I used to. Just a top up so to speak.
Happy to be out of the rat race.

It was just an economic reality for me.
I wanted more than I had and my pension plans had taken a big knock.


A little lifestyle job here and there, why not?


Do I get bored of doing nothing?
Not especially. 
I used to be driven. Inspired by my work. Headlong in my pursuit of excellence.
None of them were ever about the money.
But now those boxes are ticked, I find myself with little to prove to myself any more.
The jobs I do are easy. A bit of fun perhaps. If I won the lottery I wouldn't do it.

[srb7677]

Boredom would do it for me . Ive slowed down a bit in recent years taking more time off and suchlike but I can't wait to get out of the house after a week or so .

Due to a vulnerable condition, I had three months off on full pay at the start of covid. The first week or two were great but then I grew increasingly bored. It taught me that even if I had the means, full retirement is not for me just yet.

[Borchester]

I'm beginning to suspect that would be the same for me, although generally up until now thinking that retiring at 55 might be good.

An uncle in his 70's retrained on computers and does layout work for local printing companies. Previously he'd worked in stock control and sales from a building supplies company, and got tired of not working after retiring...










p

I imagine it comes back to the old saying, do what you like and you will never work a day in your life. In my case it is working the way I liked without having a manager pouring a lot of dimwitted instructions in my ear.

Generally my bosses have been a decent enough bunch, but usually so terrified of their bosses that they have insisted on pissing me off. They seemed to ignore the fact that most of the stuff they were rattling on about I had already thought of or that left alone without their advice I would have finished most jobs in half the time. This is particularly the case on the home front where I am continually exposed to the words, "if you want my advice."

Of course I don't want their advice. If I wanted their advice I would be sitting on my backside and watching them doing the job.

Still, the New Year Sales and various retreats approach, which should get them out of the way and give me the chance to potter in peace

[patman post]

Boredom would do it for me . Ive slowed down a bit in recent years taking more time off and suchlike but I can't wait to get out of the house after a week or so .

I'm beginning to suspect that would be the same for me, although generally up until now thinking that retiring at 55 might be good. 

An uncle in his 70's retrained on computers and does layout work for local printing companies. Previously he'd worked in stock control and sales from a building supplies company, and got tired of not working after retiring...










p

[patman post]

Same reason people haven't gone back to truck driving and other jobs, they've all gone soft during Covid and not wanted to return to the tedium of life.

Certainly noticeable on Tuesday when driving to le Shuttle that most of the trucks were foreign. 

I've been told by one engineering company that it uses European logistics companies because the shortage of drivers doesn't appear to be affecting them as much as UK trucking companies and, in consequence they're more quickly available and more reliable...

[T00ts]

That is me.

As said, I enjoy pottering, but Moses I am slow. I did a little plastering the other day. Climbed the stepladder, slapped some plaster on the ceiling and after five minutes my knees packed up and I had to sit down for half an hour before I had the puff to carry on. I reckon that I manage about an hour's real work a day.

Ditto with the gardening. I used to turn 600 square yards of ground in six days. I was at the allotment last week and it took me nigh on that long to make a pot of coffee. So now I am growing everything in 30 litre pots and using grass and garden rubbish as a growing medium because I can't dig the trenches or carry bloody great buckets of soil anymore.

That said, the plastering is getting done and produce wise, I am getting more from the allotment than ever before. So I reckon that as long as the muscle between my ears is working, I can think my way round and enjoy most problems.

That's the important thing. It's the adaptation to circumstances. I have invested in lots of ways to get around problems as they arise rather than sit and give up because things are no longer easy. 

[Borchester]

This was what Dad found.

He was forced to take early retirement from IBM with physical health problems that basically meant he could no longer withstand the physical demands of the job. When IBM offered early retirement at full salary retirement plan levels to reduce their workforce he fought to get to the front of the queue

however within three months the boredom was getting to him.

I used to take him to the various computer trade fairs I attended as a freelancer to get my head around new software and updates etc, he was his old self for the day. It was quite funny because we would turn up at (say) the NEC Birmingham and hit the trade stands and the older guys there would know him from his IBM hardware days and he'd jokingly say "'these days I work part time as a consultant in my son's business" and indeed he did.

Until the cancer hit and floored him, he actually enjoyed living off the retirement pension and 'freelancing' self employed maybe one day a fortnight for me. But the physical effort of a full time job was by then well beyond him.

Hell, the mini stroke I had back in 2020 took down about half my own physical ability. Until then I thought nothing of hefting several paving slabs at a go, or picking up
my giant Lafree twist electric bike and putting it onto the cars bicycle rack.

now it's strictly one slab at a time and stop every 50 yards, lifting the three year old real Christmas tree in its terracotta planter into the car to take it to my daughters nearly killed me and while I can JUST manage hefting the Halfords cheap mountain bike onto the bike carrier, my attempt to lift the almost twice as heavy pedelec onto
the rack three months ago had to be abandoned when I thought I was going to pass out trying to lift it.

I strongly suspect others who have chucked in the towel for jobs with some physical effort are going to be in the same boat.

That is me.

As said, I enjoy pottering, but Moses I am slow. I did a little plastering the other day. Climbed the stepladder, slapped some plaster on the ceiling and after five minutes my knees packed up and I had to sit down for half an hour before I had the puff to carry on. I reckon that I manage about an hour's real work a day.

Ditto with the gardening. I used to turn 600 square yards of ground in six days. I was at the allotment last week and it took me nigh on that long to make a pot of coffee. So now I am growing everything in 30 litre pots and using grass and garden rubbish as a growing medium because I can't dig the trenches or carry bloody great buckets of soil anymore.

That said, the plastering is getting done and produce wise, I am getting more from the allotment than ever before. So I reckon that as long as the muscle between my ears is working, I can think my way round and enjoy most problems.

[johnofgwent]

Boredom would do it for me . Ive slowed down a bit in recent years taking more time off and suchlike but I can't wait to get out of the house after a week or so .

This was what Dad found.

He was forced to take early retirement from IBM with physical health problems that basically meant he could no longer withstand the physical demands of the job. When IBM offered early retirement at full salary retirement plan levels to reduce their workforce he fought to get to the front of the queue

however within three months the boredom was getting to him.

I used to take him to the various computer trade fairs I attended as a freelancer to get my head around new software and updates etc, he was his old self for the day. It was quite funny because we would turn up at (say) the NEC Birmingham and hit the trade stands and the older guys there would know him from his IBM hardware days and he'd jokingly say "'these days I work part time as a consultant in my son's business" and indeed he did.

Until the cancer hit and floored him, he actually enjoyed living off the retirement pension and 'freelancing' self employed maybe one day a fortnight for me. But the physical effort of a full time job was by then well beyond him.

Hell, the mini stroke I had back in 2020 took down about half my own physical ability. Until then I thought nothing of hefting several paving slabs at a go, or picking up
my giant Lafree twist electric bike and putting it onto the cars bicycle rack.

now it's strictly one slab at a time and stop every 50 yards, lifting the three year old real Christmas tree in its terracotta planter into the car to take it to my daughters nearly killed me and while I can JUST manage hefting the Halfords cheap mountain bike onto the bike carrier, my attempt to lift the almost twice as heavy pedelec onto
the rack three months ago had to be abandoned when I thought I was going to pass out trying to lift it.

I strongly suspect others who have chucked in the towel for jobs with some physical effort are going to be in the same boat.

[johnofgwent]

Based on what?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/reasonsforworkersagedover50yearsleavingemploymentsincethestartofthecoronaviruspandemic/wave2

Maybe based on THIS ONS report released following research into work patterns following the last census ??

The Executive Summary makes the stark observation that while those calling it a day and hanging up their work boots age 60+ reported making an assessment of their financial status and deciding 'F@@@ this we can manage I'm chucking it in' the majority of lower age retirees 55-60 cite physical or mental health issues as a result of COVID

My former work colleague who stayed a permanent employee at the defence company I worked at until the bitter end then jumped ship taking redundancy and moved through three further permanent posts has, like most in that survey, paid off his mortgage on his home and now fears only the council tax and gas bill.

Two months ago he was notified that the project he is working on is ending and his post will be redundant thereafter, he's starting an early retirement at 63 and absolutely nothing Rishi could do save hand him every penny of his wife's inheritance, tax free AND whip himself naked through the streets of Cwmbran with the temp 10 below would persuade Trev to abandon his retirement plans. He never married and has no kids so in his position I'd do the damn same.

[Nick]

Nick the ONS and DWP data is published on a regular basis. Then there is this:-

More older workers are leaving employment due to ill-health – but COVID-19 isn't to blame, study finds

10 October 2022


The Health Foundation's analysis ( https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/is-poor-health-driving-a-rise-in-economic-inactivity )finds that by the second quarter of 2022, 200,000 older workers (age 50–69) had left employment due to ill-health since the start of the pandemic: the biggest contributor to the recent rise in economic inactivity for that group. Ill-health is defined as 'people reporting they are temporarily sick or injured or long-term sick and disabled'.

Before the pandemic, people were retiring later and inactivity was falling overall. But this masked the growing number of 50-64 year olds who were inactive due to ill-health. By the start of 2020, there were an additional 110,000 older workers who were no longer working on health grounds compared to 2014.

This increase in poor health and economic inactivity will be concerning for employers and businesses, as it can restrict labour supply and economic growth. People who are out of work because of poor health are more likely to want to work than those who report they have retired. 

Pre-pandemic, the proportion of those who are inactive with a long-term health condition was around 63%, but this has increased only slightly to 64% post-pandemic, the study finds. This suggests that underlying poor health is playing a significant role in people leaving employment. 

Same reason people haven't gone back to truck driving and other jobs, they've all gone soft during Covid and not wanted to return to the tedium of life.