Re: How times change - thank goodness
You cannot halt progress, that is a Luddites mentality.
Jobs have always been lost to progress, there is nothing we can or should do to halt that.
The problems arise when there is nothing to fill the void.
I live in the North West where people depended on industry for their livelihoods. Since the years of coal and cotton being kings have gone, nothing has replaced those jobs and so we have sections of the community who have known nothing but a life depending on the benefits system.
The government are now demonising and punishing the unemployed for the financial mess of this country.
It has come to the point were a local shop is offering an apprenticeship to a sixteen year old. How long of an apprenticeship does it take to learn how to fill shelves, stock take and work a till. Will they have a day release and go to college and gain a qualification, I think not. This shop is taking advantage of the governments apprenticeship scheme. Okay, you may say it's a job, and so it is, but that is what it has come down to in this part of the world.
The only alternative is to stay in education, which some will not be capable of or don't want to do, or try desperately to find work, or sink into a life on benefits.
I know it paints a bleak picture but that is the way it is for some.
Yes things are much better, even for the less well off but not comparatively so, the gap is getting bigger by the day.
We probably have more homeless people than at any time in the past, and since no country will know for sure how many homeless people they have, I can only base my assumption on what I see with my own eyes.
I'll step off my soap box now.