The Unemployed UK

It was February of the winter of 1985. Just two days after our arrival in London it snowed like hell. Four inches of pure white snow. Heard it was after 20 years. We rolled on snow, made snow men, snow women. Snow fights and also tasting……pictures taken…calls made to parents and siblings back home….well informed…. The joy lasted for two days…..it was the 20 miles per hour wind coupled with the cold which blew our ears off.

Snow turned brown…then black …mixed with dust and earth…. “you got to be very careful walking on black snow,” experienced friends warned. Hospitals were full of elderly fallen on slippery black snow. In a few days faced the exam prepared for. Results in few months…now time to find employment. Although we were there to sit for the solicitor's examination we were on visit visas. We were not given permission to work. But we managed to find two, three jobs where we engaged full time. It was only after passing the examination that we were allowed to work.

Unskilled jobs

Now the situation is totally different. No visitor will be able to find employment as the employers are very reluctant to employ migrants with no permission to work. They themselves face prosecution and imprisonment with up to a fine of five thousand pounds if caught employing a person who has no permission to work. The employee will be deported as soon as possible. University students are allowed to work ten hours per week during their term time. Although the permission is there you got to be fortunate to find employment that suits you. Even in 1985 I used to work in restaurants, supermarkets, petrol stations until I passed my examination.

The situation of finding employment has become a very serious matter. It is heard that there is a sharp rise in recent graduates working as cleaners and porters in the United Kingdom. A report by the Office for National Statistics said the number of university leavers employed in unskilled jobs, such as cleaning, hotel portering and catering had risen sharply in the last ten years. The graduates working in low skilled jobs have risen from 26.7 percent in 2001 to 35.9 percent in 2011. There is also evidence that young people struggling to find work and a degree are no longer guaranteed a high earning employment. It is also found that one in five of recent graduates is out of work.

Whatever it is and regardless of subjects studied, university leavers earn higher than non-graduates. The statistics say leavers with medical or dentistry degrees earn almost more than double than arts graduates. The median average hourly pay for science graduates is Sterling Pounds 21.29 and for arts graduate it is Sterling Pounds 12.06. 49 percent of the people living in London have a degree and in Northern Ireland it is 28 percent.

State benefits

Due to the last recession the unemployed figures went high in UK. Many of them rely on state benefits. In the wake of mounting economic hardship for Britons, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith urged residents to get jobs and fend for themselves rather than rely on state benefits and handouts.

Speaking recently, he said the former Labour government's strategy to channel more than Sterling Pounds 150 billion into tax credits and benefit payments between 2004 and 2010, snowballed the welfare bill by 40 percent even in a decade of buoyant growth and employment, hasn't done much to alleviate the incidence of child poverty. England is becoming increasingly rife with concerns over unemployment and underemployment on the heels of the country's possible slip into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s.

Although current unemployment levels fell by 45,000 to 8.2 percent between January and March 2012, the number of people who had no jobs for longer than a year increased by 27,000 to 887,000, reaching a 16-year high, according to data from the Office of National Statistics. Furthermore, the number of workers who hold full-time jobs shrank by 13,000 to 21.2 million. That means many more people who are in the workforce are being shunted into part-time jobs.

The claims for unemployment benefits climbed by 7,200 to Sterling Pounds 1.6 million ($ 2.5 million) in March, increasing for the 12th month in a row, reported the Office of National Statistics.

Handouts have more than doubled in the past year. This is projected to increase further, officials from Trussell Trust, Britain's leading food-bank network, told The Guardian in April 2012. Though unemployment and long-term jobless workers are indeed issues, the surprising rise in emergency food parcels isn't because residents cannot find jobs. Amid rising living costs and a staggering downward pressure on salaries, many families are struggling to make ends meet. Often, they barely do.

Multi-cultural society

According to the household income report by the UK Department for Works, Consumers' purchasing power has declined significantly over the last three years. The fall in real earnings pushed median incomes down, coaxing some state-dependent families above the poverty line. However, middle-income-range families grew poorer much faster than their lower-income counterparts.

It is noticeable that unemployment in the United Kingdom has increased during last few years.

The influx of Eastern Europeans made the situation worse. Under the rules of the European Economic Area, citizens of any member country can migrate and work in any other member country. Therefore Polish and Romanian people turned in at London the very next day. Some skilled and many unskilled jobs were undertaken by them undercutting British labour. Builders, electricians, carpenters, painters, decorators, cleaners and many other type of workers were among them.

Communities of migrants are expanding. Food has been imported from their countries for consumption. Polish, Romanian and other Eastern European shops have been opened in many areas of London and suburbs. London has become a multi-cultural society. There will be members from Eastern European communities in the British Parliament in the years to come.

The unemployment cannot be blamed only on the recession.