Minimum Wage

[Arthur Little]

I got an A level in Economics.

Congratulations ... I failed!

Yep. Supply and demand for jobs. No doubt with all these women going out to work in the UK, over the last 50 years or so, has made a difference to the labour market.

Agreed! But its 'genesis' goes even further back than that ... to the period between 1939~45 in fact - when women were drafted into the workforce to keep the nation's economy ticking over while their menfolk went off to war.

Understandable ... during wartime. However, it follows that, with an ensuing drop in the birthrate, many women were, not unnaturally, reluctant to relinquish their newly-found earning power in the immediate aftermath of hostilities - particularly in a period of severe, ongoing austerity - and, notwithstanding the resultant emergence of the so-called "Baby-Boomer" era, this trend took hold nationwide and continued throughout the 1950s and into the early '60s.

And so it has remained over the past half century ... to the extent of ultimately becoming 'the norm' - with *no signs of abating - *a characteristic it shares with the relentless advance of technology in being largely responsible for today's shortage of opportunities in the job market.

[lastlid]

Congratulations ... I failed!



Agreed! But its 'genesis' goes even further back than that ... to the period between 1939~45 in fact - when women were drafted into the workforce to keep the nation's economy ticking over while their menfolk went off to war.

Understandable ... during wartime. However, it follows that, with an ensuing drop in the birthrate, many women were, not unnaturally, reluctant to relinquish their newly-found earning power in the immediate aftermath of hostilities - particularly in a period of severe, ongoing austerity - and, notwithstanding the resultant emergence of the so-called "Baby-Boomer" era, this trend took hold nationwide and continued throughout the 1950s and into the early '60s.

And so it has remained over the past half century ... to the extent of ultimately becoming 'the norm' - with *no signs of abating - *a characteristic it shares with the relentless advance of technology in being largely responsible for today's shortage of opportunities in the job market.

Women
Immigrants
Technology

I guess all three of those.

[Arthur Little]

... which is one of the principal reasons I'm totally opposed to the Government raising the official retiral ages.

and - aside from the one I've already advocated in #12 - the fact that it will surely deprive young people of the obvious feelings of satisfaction to be derived from the realisation that they'd be "doing THEIR bit" towards boosting our country's ailing GNP.

Let's face it ... the majority of older people have had their chance to contribute to society - now it's the turn of future generations - leaving the "golden oldies" the RIGHT to enjoy the rest of their lives free from harness as nature intended.

N.B. Positioning of appropriate smilies has been deliberately arranged in the order shown above ... since it would be hardly suprising to find that women accounted for twice the number of men currently employed in the modern workplace.