The BBC reports that:-

The outlook for jobs has worsened with a survey of 2,100 employers finding that four out of five had no plans to hire workers in the next three months.
The survey by Manpower found that hiring expectations were at their lowest level for three years.

But the Reed job index for November reports:-

November figures: Job opportunities rise to 23 month high
Figures released for November show a steep rise in employer demand for new UK workers, with the Reed Job Index reaching a new record of 133.
New job opportunities rose to their highest level for nearly two years in November, with a four point rise across the UK compared to October.
Overall, demand has risen 33 per cent since December 2009, when the Reed Job Index baseline was set at 100.

So, what is it?

The Nationalisation of Low-Paid Jobs

This story about "Young jobseekers told to work without pay or lose unemployment benefits" has been quite a popular thing on the internet today. My thoughts on it amount to three points:-

• The state is able to withdraw unemployment benefit for those who refuse to do 'unpaid' work
• Employers being unable/unwilling to employ people who's work is worth less than the minimum wage
• This amounts to nationalisation of low-paid jobs.

Please allow be to address these points further.

Its not been that long since I was made unemployed and applied for job seekers allowance, about three years. When I lost my job I waited a few months before applying for any benefits because I'm of the mind that to do so would be to succome to being a scrouger. It was only after I was reminded that I'd been paying National Insurance for many years that I felt obliged to claim benefits.

Its an insurance thing, like my car insurance, I pay them monthly in case of an unexpected occurance. I'd expect the money due in full, not on condition that I ride a bike for a few months. That's not what I signed up for.

However, with this in mind, I'm also fully aware that you are beholden to the state, you have to jump through whatever hoops they put in your way, you have to fill in forms, attend interviews and sign off regularly in order to receive your payment equivalent to working for about £1.75 per hour. If you fail to do what the state demands of you, then you don't get your payment. Sometimes you don't get your payment anyway because someone somewhere cocks up, or they change the rules. That's what happens when you are beholden to the state.

So, if the state says you must do 30 hours of unpaid work or have your benefits withdrawn, well then, its not unpaid work, its work that you get £65 for if you do it and nothing if you don't and that just convinces me even more so that unemployment benefit is working a very poorly paid job rather than a genuine insurance process.

On my second point, I believe that one of the side effects of the minimum wage in the UK is that the young and inexperienced are priced out of the job market. Employers are forbidden from legally employing someone at a rate of less than £3.68 an hour for 16-17 year olds and £6.08 per hour for the over 20s.

Employees are broadly paid in relation to their productivity.

Take for example strawberry picking. Customers are only willing to pay for example £2 for a punnet of strawberries. Workers at the strawberry farm would have to be able to pick three punnets of strawberrys every hour to make minimum wage or their employer would be making a loss. Given the choice between employing an experienced strawberry picker with a proven level of productivity on minimum wage or an unexperienced one with lower or unproven productivity, there's nothing in it, the youngster has no chance.

Without the minimum wage, the employer could take on the inexperienced chap and pay him at a rate commensurate to his productivity, how fast he can pick those strawberries, be it one punnet an hour or two punnets, and through time and experience that chap would one day be more productive and able to pick three or four punnets an hour and make more money. But on starting out, because he's not worth the £6.08 an hour, he's not worth employing.

Thats not to say that there aren't employers out there who don't pay wage below what is commensurate to the productivity of the employee, I'm just taking employers generally on good faith. We've got one of the EU's most flexible labour markets in the UK, if people think they can get paid more doing the same job at the level of productivity for more money with another employer, they are more free to take their labour elsewhere, than in other EU countries. This generally helps to keep pay levels appropriate.
Whilst some commentators believe that removing the minimum wage laws will lead to a 'race to the bottom' in terms of pay levels, I'm more optimistic and believe it would lead to more balanced pay levels, jobs done well would get paid more than jobs done poorly.

Anyhoo, with these first two points the state has created a distorted labour market where if your labour is worth more than £1.75, but less than the minimum wage, you are unemployable.

Which brings me to my third point, elsewhere on the internet, I am part of the Occupy movement, I may not have a tent outside St Pauls, but never the less I actively contribute to the movement's google.moderator thing and their Your Priorities website, frequently trying to raise the profile of their intelligent ideas and batting down their more mental ones.

Recently there was a suggestion that the state creates a new bank that is 'fair' or something. I pointed out that the state already runs five or six of the UK's banks, (RBS, Lloyds TSB, HBOS, Northern Rock, Post Office banking etc) and I had this epiphany of what nationalisation looks like in the 21st century under the current government. Its not things like British Airways, British Leyland, British Telecom, its more like private sector things that are now owned by the state.

And so, low paid jobs, jobs that are worth less than the minimum wage, because of the youth and inexperience of the people doing them, these job are now owned by the state, they are what nationalisation looks like, and the workers employed in them will be paid by the state.

Philip Davies and the minimum wage for disabled people

An MP called Philip Davies didn't seem to be very popular on my Facebook newsfeed and Tweeter feeds last week, he'd allegedly said something along the lines of disabled employees should be paid less than other employees. That's clearly discriminatory and just shows how evil Conservatives and right-wingers in general are.

One twitterer reckoned that Philip Davies thinks that Stephen Hawking should be working for below minimum wage.

On a related note, this time three years ago I was very much unemployed, claiming job seekers allowance at a rate of about £1.80 an hour. After eight months of unemployment, I somehow managed to scrape myself into a minimum wage job sweeping floors in a sandwich factory, where I was the only native English speaker on the shop floor for around £5.75 and hour. It was sheer hell, After a few months I displayed a bit of talent and got myself transferred to the Quality department and got a 50p pay rise to £6.25 per hour. After six months of walking to work at 4am to be moaned at and given impossible tasks, I handed in my resignation and signed up to a temping agency and got a job for £10 an hour filing in an office in regular office hours, and after twelve months of turn up on time every day I was taken of full time permanent at around £12.30 per hour, which is about the same as I was on at the peak of my previous career in British hifi manufacturing.

Its like an employment ladder, you start on the bottom rung and work your way updeveloping your talents, self-esteem and trust with your employers.

Anyhoo, back to Philip Davies MP, his name was familiar to me, one of the libertarian blogs I subscribe, Dick Puddlecoat, has Philip Davies as their blog mascot and reports on when he's done anything note-worthy in parliament.

It seems that rather than saying that disabled people are subhuman scum should be paid less than able-bodied people for doing the same work, he said:-

If those people who consider it [the minimum wage] is being a hindrance to them, and in my view that's some of the most vulnerable people in society, if they feel that for a short period of time, taking a lower rate of pay to help them get on their first rung of the jobs ladder, if they judge that that is a good thing, I don't see why we should be standing in their way.

I can see kind of where's he's coming from even if I don't agree, I'm empathic like that, its one of my skillz.I could be mistaken, but it doesn't look like he's suggesting that anyone is forced to take a pay cut. Unless you've got what could be considered a imaginary evil tory strawman in mind, that you want to project concepts and policies onto to justify your own opposing beliefs.
For days I've been rumbling in ma heid if I should blog about this and how, how I would frame it all. I want to raise reader's ire, but at the same time I want to cover my back against the sort of claims Philip Davies faced for being evil.
So here's a few bullet points:-

• How come young people are on a lower minimum wage? that's already enshrined in law, is it as evil as having a lower minimum wage for disabled people? More so perhaps? Is their labour somehow worth less than elder workers? Or is it accepted that inexperienced labour is worth less. Did anyone accuse the 1998 government of being evil? Well, yes.
• The old strawberry picking / minimum wage line. A punnet of strawberries is worth X amount of money. That's how much they sell for in the shops. So if you can't collect a minimum wages worth of strawberries in an hour then the employer would be making a loss by employing you compared to someone who can, so you'll never get the job. Sure with a bit of practice you might become faster at collecting strawberries, but under the current system, you're going to have to be a volunteer and provide your labour for free until you're fast enough, unless you find an uneconomically generous strawberry farmer. If your labour isn't yet worth £5.75 no one will buy. Would you pay £1.89 for a 16p can of lager?
• Why would you want to stay in a minimum wage job for ages. Can't you make yourself better at doing something and then get a better job? Why would you stay where there are only minimum wage jobs. Millions of people travel thousands of miles in search of better jobs all the time. Some of my colleagues in the sandwich factory, on their minimum wage, would send money back home, cos the jobs back home paid so little in comparison.
• In London a return the underground cost about £5. In Glasgow a return ticket costs £2.40. Down south a minimum wage worker has to work twice as long just to get to work. Likewise house prices and rents vary enormously across the country. The minimum wage is hell in some places and more comfortable in others. Sometimes for two people working side-by side.

Anyhoo, in my Walthamstow survivalist cabin these points are moot, Philip Davies is wrong, the disabled, the vulnerable should not be singled out for special dispensation of the minimum wage. The main thrust of my argument about minimum wage, be it for the disabled, young people and everyone else, is this:- Minimum wage should be a personal choice.
The state shouldn't have anything to do with it.
What is the minimum wage that you specifically would work for?
People are very rarely forced to work in the UK, slave labour is the exception and against the law. Its a free choice. If you work you get paid money, if you don't you then you are beholden to the state on benefits. If you've got a shit job, feel free to quit.
Also, what makes you think that the minimum wage that you would chose to work for is the same as the minimum wage that any other person else would chose to work for?
Now since I typed this piece, I've read up the wikipedia page on minimum wage, the Minimum Wage Act UK 1998 and the actual Hansard debate from whence Philip Davies has been quoted. And also via twitter, a variety of other bloggists have written on the matter, some with similar opinions, some raging, and some widely differing.

• Some people like concept of the minimum wage
• Some people don't like the idea of it
• Some disabled people like the idea of the minimum wage
• Some disabled people don't like the idea of the minimum wage
• Some people thing the minimum wage is too low
• Some evidence shows that the minimum wage is a good positive thing
• Some evidence shows that the minimum wage is a bad negative thing
• Some evidence is overwhelmingly authoritative and conclusive
• People chose to support and promote which ever evidence and research supports their own views

I remember back when I was unemployed, I thought at the time that the minimum wage was too high and I'd willingly work for less in order to not be unemployed. I still do. I think people should be able to opt out of the minimum wage. Luckily they can.
There are plenty of employers who, outwith the system, pay below minimum wage regardless of the law.
Anyhoo, if we must have a minimum wage dictated by the state, I propose this:-
A higher minimum wage for disabled people and special groups
and
The option to opt out of the minimum wage in order to undercut people competing for the same job
Satisfied? I thought so.
References
The text of the debate - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-06-17a.1010.0&m=40619
Wikipedia Minimum Wage - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage
Wikipedia National Minimum Wage Act 1998 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Wage_Act_1998
Bruce Lawson - http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2011/disabled-people-working-for-less-than-minimum-wage/
Devils Kitchen - http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2011/06/moron-of-week-edward-leigh-mp.htm
Dick Puddlecoat - http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2011/06/mascot-watch-13-that-speech.html
Jackart - http://brackenworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/thoughts-on-evidence-on-national.html
Old Holborn - http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2011/06/minimum-wage-is-actually-165-enforced.html
Politics Student - http://www.politicsstudent.co.uk/2011/06/is-philip-davies-actually-wrong-on-his.html

My Wage Ladder

Addendum to my earlier minimum wage post

I feel the need to make several points very clear to avoid confusion and misunderstandings regarding my earlier post on Philip Davies's comments about vulnerable people and the minimum wage.

Firstly, people all over the world suffer in terrible conditions, people are still dying from preventable causes. Rape is used as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Libya. There's still research to be done on a cure for Aids and cancer. The climate is changing. In such a context, the minimum wage and Philip Davies's views aren't that important.

Secondly, I am not advocating that anyone has money taken away from them. I am not suggesting that people who currently earn £5.93 an hour should have a pay cut forced on them. If a person has agreed with an employer to do a job for an agreed hourly wage, the state should not be able to change that agreement.

Thirdly, the Wikipedia entry on the minimum wage carries quite a literature review on the various research on the positive and negative outcomes and effects of the minimum wage, it also covers criticism of the various research. Whether such research can be considered conclusive really depends on your own biases. I reckon it clearly shows that national minimum wage levels are a bad thing, other people may just a rightly disagree. It's not even clear cut whether its clear cut.

Fourthly, I believe some conservatives and right-wingers are evil and some are good. The same thing can be said of any grouping of people. More generally, some individuals, in my opinion are cunts.

Another thing what occurred to me after discussing this with @FrFintonStack on twitter, is that as a compromise, the unions are in a better position to negotiate a minimum wage with an employer than the state.

No one knows what an individual's minimum wage should be better than the individual themself. The government in trying to set one national level for everyone, can never have enough information on the individuals needs and the employers finances to make a correct judgement. But a union in a workplace, with their local collective might, that's a better compromise than the current situation.

Moaning about: Reed Job Index

I have discovered a marvellous thing, The Reed Job Index

Its a bit of the reed.co.uk recruitment website where they track the total number of job vacancies listed, and provide information by region, sector and also salary levels, showing what sort of jobs they have more or fewer vacancies for. Its updated monthly, and they produce an annual infographic.
You know how I love graphs and infographics, I think its great. Its so easy to read, digest and process. Their information all goes back to December 2009, sixteen months ago.

They do a brilliant job of handling the data, far better than I could do by myself.

Regular readers of my online ramblings might have discovered that my previous blog has mysteriously vanished. Some conspiracy theorists would put this down my disregard of injunctions and superinjunctions when blogging about political and legal matters, others may think its some kind of fault with blogspot, or maybe I've made it private and not invited them cos I hate them, or maybe for extreme theorists, I've died. None of this is the case. What actually happened was that I deleted it, cos that's the reckless and crazy kind of guy that I am. You knew that already, right?

An unfortunate side effect of deleting my blog is that now I can't go back and check when I started tracking the number of jobs from the Reed.co.uk website on a ruddy great google docs spreadsheet, and creating rubbish Excel graphs and summaries of the UK's job market. I vaguely remember posting stuff back in early 2009, and then writing update blogposts every month or so whilst I wallowed in unemployment and depression, searching for some way I could become a productive and creative member of society, earning my way in the world, applying for jobs in internet PR and Marketing and anything that would combine my love of spreadsheets and graphs with gainful employment.

According to Reed.co.uk, "The Reed JobIndex has quickly become a respected measure of the state of the UK's job market, being widely reported across the national news media.", they have a long list of press coverage from organisations like the Bloomberg, the Independent and BBC.

I feel a tiny bit bitter that my pioneering work demonstrating the possibilities and the public interest in such data, doing much the same thing as the Job Index but months earlier, has been ripped off with no credit given.

Maybe Chief Executive James Reed is sat in his office off Chancery Lane in London, glorious blue skies outside, he wishes he was out in Lincoln Fields eating ice cream. He glances at the mounds of work, looking at his hourly updates, or the minutes from meetings, he sees that the Reed Job Index has gotten some more mainstream coverage.

He presses the button for his secretary, "Liz, who was it who came up with the Reed Job Index idea?" he asks.

"I'm not sure Jimbo, I think it was that odd one in Marketing who doesn't usually do any work, just reads blogs and checks website traffic" she replies.

"Well give them a pay rise anyway, they deserve it."

"Sure thing Jimbo!"

There's probably a financial value for the Reed JobIndex, and I'm going to carry the thought that some small percentage of that is owed to me.

Sadly, due to me rashly deleting my old blog, I have no way to prove anything. Its all but a twinkle in my eye, a splash on the bathroom floor.

Well, there is of course the google cache, which is a metaphorical discarded tissue, by the side of the bed.