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You were lucky! My first pay rate was 2/6d an hour. Thats a fiver for a 40 hour week. Agricultural labour at age 16.
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First job or first holiday job? Which year?Comment
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1970 aged 16 summer jobComment
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mine was a "proper" job. Agricultural labourers have always been low paid and Agri summer jobs even worse. I was in an accounts office, 4 days work, 1 day and 1 evening at Tech College, accounting course. In year 2, just after I'd changed companies, we covered nominal ledger. Tracking money that didn't exist, merely paper values on inter departmental stuff, basically money shifting from your front pocket to your back pocket, money that doesn't affect profit/loss figures... the company computer centre was looking for trainees. I applied and got a job there... the rest is history. Spent 27 years in IT, the last 15 self employed. Market dropped so I started a training company giving IT and Business English courses. That led to jobs at a Sports College and a Secondary School teaching Computer Science and English Language. Retired at 60Originally posted by Geoff Parkstone View PostComment
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Yes that makes sense as I was being paid the then equivalent of the non existent national minimum wage (set by the Agricultural Wages Board) for 16 year old of ? 7 a week for 46 hour week (less if I was female or indeed anywhere else on the gender spectrum I suspect although that didnt exist in 1970). That actually works out at about 3 bob an hour - so looks like I was being scalped in retrospect!! My mum was probably taking a tanner per hour for food as it was on family farm
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Mind you ? 7/0s/0d could buy an awful lot of Pascals Fruit Bonbons at 1s/3d a bag. (112 bags to be exact as well as deferred type 2 diabetes). That would cost about ? 350 today. National Minimum Wage for 46 hours today would be ? 368, so using the sweets index noone can say that real inflation adjusted wages havent risen in the intervening 56 years.... just.Comment
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I went on to a YTS, had no desire to go to college.
27.50 a week
It worked really well for me as without it I probably wouldn't be doing what I do today.
My wife's friends Son has just started an apprenticeship at 18 and is on 24k a year.
I can understand people being reluctant to take on young people when the required salary is such. How many would do something like a YTS today? Equivalent would be about 95 a week.Comment
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This is why I'm not convinced that maximising NMW will be good for the economy. It will restrict job creation and leave more people in the benefits trap, whereas reducing NMW will increase job creation. In a perfect world this could then be topped up by universal credit.
Hard to say if this makes the taxpayer any better or worse offComment
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GP, read somewhere last week that, in the young people category age range, which I think is 16 to 25 (please correct me if I'm wrong), there's 1 million of them not currently in work, education or training. Will that lead to most of them never getting a job? I fear that the numbers will only rise due to AI.
AI really is getting jobs to disappear. A good friend of mine has a business, he's an editor of educational, business and academic papers. He made a comfortable living without having to work anything like 40 hours a week for 47 weeks a year like most folk. Then along came AI. In the last 2 years, he's getting very few contacts for work. So far this year, he's done 4 pieces of work. 2 small ones and 2 medium sized ones. Total of 3 weeks work. As a self employed man there's no dole to be had. He's developed vertigo, got back pain which turned out to be a fractured vertebra, unsteady on his legs and has to use a walking stick, falls over intermittently, walking around 100m and back is OK, any further and he's in pain. AI has ruined his business and his health is preventing him doing owt else. Thanks AI.Comment
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I echo your fears absolutely. AI will totally and medically change society such that if we came back in (say) 2060 we wouldn't recognise it. The concept of work likely won't exist. To some that might sound attractive, but not me...Comment
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I retired 12 years ago. Still keep myself busy buying and selling records online. Doing the odd DJ gig. 3 to 4 cycle rides a week in good weather, zero in poor weather. Couple of hours a day online. Holidays, weekends away, football... Keep yersen busy and avoid the black hole some fall into.Originally posted by Geoff Parkstone View PostComment
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I agree MA keep doing as much as you can no matter if at times all you want to do is put your feet up!Originally posted by MadAmster View Post
These days the old legs ain't wot they used to be and energy levels border on the non existent, both are a combination of age and no doubt the long term effects of multiple cancers. In Feb of this year I spent a further 3 weeks in the Royal having more invasive treatment which, unfortunately, was followed by a massive infection. As usual the Doctors, Nurses and Ancillary Staff were all b marvellous. Can't do much these days but still walk the dogs, a bit of DIY and just finished huvvering downstairs.
There's cricket and golf on the box today, keep doing what you can while you can! Oh and be nice to each other!Comment
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The buying and selling records 'thing' (I know its more than a thing, KTF) brings an interesting issue up - vinyl was replaced by CD was replaced by downloads was replaced by streaming, BUT there's been a decent level of return to vinyl by those who want such things, despite a price premium. Will there be a situation in future where AI/automation does almost all the 'basics', but everything has its premium version and that is still hand-delivered?Originally posted by MadAmster View Post
Also, just as a mind exercise, I've been pondering whether the things I 'do' in life could ever be provided by AI and I struggle to see it - however, its mainly because I like the 'human touch' and I think that will increasingly become a minority view
I've said it before, Zager And Evans were more spot on than they realisedComment
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One of the reasons why Im still working MA, although I have now taken the kings shilling and am part of the benefits burden on society. Given up bits of the work but still keeping doing the core stuff - helps keep me "alive": on the event horizon perhaps, but not in the hole yet.Originally posted by MadAmster View PostComment
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Can't speak for other genres but there's a resugence in Soul music. Average age of attendees at gigs was going in one direction, upwards. 2 or 3 years ago, a small band of followers started gigs in the Bristol area and they are now hugely popular, not only locally but attracting Soulies from far and wide. There's also pockets of younger interest in the Midlands and the North that seem to have been triggered by Bristol's success. Soul record prices were dropping but the influx of younger ones has seen them surge again. I'm happy with that as I'm slowly starting to divest myself of my vinyl.Originally posted by Andy_Faber View PostComment
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Ironic that the current scenes from Belfast are so reminiscent of the sixties and seventies as that’s where those on the far right seem determined to return us.
I do hope those who defend or support the likes of Farage, Robinson and Lowe recognise that such scenes as we’ve seen in Southport, Southampton and Belfast is where their irresponsibility and incitement leads us.
Is immigration a matter which needs addressing? Certainly.
Does that in any way justify the type of racist thuggery (and that exactly is what it is) we’re now seeing. Absolutely not!Comment
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