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 sebster wrote:
Fraud and abuse is a minor problem, but people on long term unemployment, and often lacking the ability to find decent work, are a significant problem in most countries.

And in a few years time it'll be a fair bit worse, due to the high unemployment rates following the GFC.

Long-term unemployment is something the market will have to cure. But it won't without government assistance, because the market is wholly unconcerned with the problem, since it doesn't directly effect the bottom line.

 whembly wrote:

The problem would be, what would be that big project?

There are plenty of bridges that need attention.

Granted, those two examples are no longer with us, but I'm sure there are others.

 Easy E wrote:
Perhaps we need to start a cultural shift and start to realize that as we continue to automate there simply will not be work for everyone.

That means we need to start actually reducing the standard "hours' that a person works , increase wages for those lesser hours worked, and get people to retire earlier instead of later.

These steps would free up time that employers will need to fill and hire for. Since employers won't do this themselves; it requires government to make the hard choices that are needed for society.

George Jetson is right. The three day work weeks are the future.

Yeah, this is complicated one. I agree that our trend to working more hours is pretty crazy, but I'm not sure the effort to legislate reduced working hours, like in France, is ever going to be all that successful. If people want to work more in order to get more stuff, they're going to do it.

It's something that I think will only really change when there's a social shift, when people start getting enough stuff, and instead want more time to use all that stuff they've acquired. And I suspect that may be a long way off, at this point there's too much status involved in having a nicer car than your neighbour.


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 Melissia wrote:
Long-term unemployment is something the market will have to cure. But it won't without government assistance, because the market is wholly unconcerned with the problem, since it doesn't directly effect the bottom line.

Yeah, government needs to put a lot of work in to skills programs and work programs to get people off long term unemployment. Whether it happens, and whether its effective is the big question.