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UK Young and unemployed people in Trade Union Backed demo

Young people from across the UK are to join a demonstration in London, highlighting growing concerns over youth unemployment and lack of opportunities for jobs.The campaign group Youth Fight for Jobs are the central organisers for the demo.

Trade union leaders support this demonstration and will play a part in the protest in central London to press for more action to tackle youth unemployment. Youth unemployment in the UK is nearing a million.

Students, union activists and other campaigners will travel to the capital from areas which have been badly hit by the rise in youth unemployment, including Hull and Birmingham.

Political support
Labour MP John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) said: "This march highlights the plight of the million young people who are now unemployed and the many more who are facing joblessness as a result of this recession."

Young Pay the Price
"Young people are being forced to pay for the economic crisis whilst bankers award themselves another £5 billion in bonuses this month. I support the march and urge people to join this campaign to demand action against youth unemployment."

Union Leaders
Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union said: "Unemployment is a massive human cost to accept. It's even more damaging with one in five young people being unemployed. It's important that we place young people at the core of our aims and objectives, to achieve developing policies for them."

National Organiser
Sean Figg, national organiser for the campaign, added: "This demonstration is going to make it clear that young people are not prepared to face a future of unemployment, job cuts and attacks on our public services.

"Youth unemployment stands at around one million, and disgracefully the Government is cutting vocational education, and is thinking about raising university fees, whilst increasing the level of qualifications needed to find employment."


Summary
All this leads to further cutting out and increased exclusion of the working class youth from further education. When a degree qualification has become the minimum qualification to apply for well paid jobs and this right has been taken away from the poorer classes, you cynically and aggresively remove any chance of the poor from improving their standard of living and their lifestyle.


Excluding and condemning the UK youth to unemployment induced poverty is a recipe for civil unrest and another step towards the breakdown of democracy and a liberal society.

How to get fired or caught up in the downsizing threshing machine

Here we are offering you five really good ways that high-tech workers could get themselves caught up in the brutal threshing machine of a downsizing exercise and book themselves a good spot in the expanding ranks of the unemployed.

1. Be invisible
Now is not the time to go unnoticed. It' not the time to shrivel and try to be invisible to management. Many people tend to default to hide-and-retreat mode when layoffs come up, but that could call more attention to you and make it appear you aren't contributing enough to be kept around.

Even those working hard could unknowingly be at risk due to their 'in-office' time. Some IT workers who operate from a home office might need to make a few extra trips into work to remind managers, in person, of their existance and importance to the company.

Being visible during downtime is a big deal. If you are always remote and people at the office don't see you as part of the team, that could cause problems. Often it can be a case of out of sight, out of mind, and remote workers could unwittingly become a target to be cut

2. Let your skills stagnate
There may be no training dollars, but that doesn't mean managers won't be considering IT pros' lack of updated skills when making layoff decisions. Regardless of the current economic trouble, high-workers should always be looking for ways to advance their knowledge.

IT staffers that don't maintain their certifications and stay trained show poor strategic thinking and will very quickly find themselves behind the curve. Turning a blind eye to new technology and thinking it can wait will wear thin in a down economy. Managers don't want staff that add to the can't do list in times like these.

The employee who uses the excuse about lack of dollars won't make points when it comes to cutting staff.

A pet annoyance of mine and many others, is people asking companies for more than they are willing to give. There has to be some level of mutual understanding about what contributions can feasibly be made on both the employer and employee. There are low- and no-cost training options if the employee is willing to make the effort.

3. Snoop into systems
It goes without saying that IT workers shouldn't abuse their access to company confidential systems, but industry watchers warn that if layoffs are going to happen, those high-tech pros with questionable practices will be the first to go.

It is really easy for an IT person to see what others are doing and to look at confidential data, without being caught but if you are suspected of some shady stuff, that would be reason enough to bring your name to the top of the layoff list.

Even if the practices aren't breaking corporate policies, IT professionals need to be on their best behaviour. Try to avoid abusing a flexible schedule with long lunches and don't use your high-tech position as a reason to spend too much time on the Internet for non-work-related activities.

If you are the person viewed as someone just logging their hours to collect a paycheck and don't plan to contribute more than the minimum, management will see that and you will become vulnerable.

4. Make plenty of demands
Pay cuts, hiring freezes, layoffs none of these factors suggest it's an appropriate time to ask for a raise. Yet experts say some will use their ongoing service to a company during a recession as a reason to demand more money and other benefits.

Now is not the time to ask for a raise; now is not the time to complain about needing more time off. In these cases, the squeaky wheel will get the shaft.

While it may seem to IT pros they are going above and beyond and deserve compensation for their efforts, those in the position to fire staff might not want to hear it.

Right now, employees should be nodding their heads a lot, not being surly or pushing back on responsibility.

5. Spew forth negativity
Employers now more than ever want positive attitudes on staff, and those spewing negativity will be weeded out.

The truth is that everybody from a technical standpoint is replaceable. I notice more than anything the negativity an employee displays. Negativity is contagious, and once an employee goes that route, it is nearly impossible to turn them back.

So now, go forth and apply what you have learned and you could soon be free to take a new challenge in a different organisation or just hang out at the local unemployment office with your new friends.

Building Careers or Selling Dreams and Magic Beans

Let me tell you a tale of caution and disillusionment but maybe also of unrealistic hopes and an, all to rapid relinquishing of personal responsibilities.

A sad fact of life is that there are a large number of people currently unemployed and an even larger number that fear they will soon be unemployed.

A large number of these people will be either senior in status or senior in years and it is this group that can be so easily disarmed, during such times.

Its been a long time since they were in the job market and longer still since they had to ask other people for help. Our tale begins with Mr F, a newly unemployed hard working guy, desperate to regain his status and station in life and also, in the eyes of his family. Unfortunately, desperation is a negative emotion and a poor master.

Outplacement Companies
Seeking an edge to regain his rightful place in society, Mr. F paid an outplacement company $8,250, believing it would help him land a six-figure job in his area. At least that's what their sales person promised. Unfortunately, the company did little more than redo his résumé, encourage him to cold-call employers and expand his network.

Took Advantage
Mr. F, aged 58, firmly believes that the company misrepresented its services and exaggerated its capabilities. He eventually found a job, but without their help, and gratefully received a partial refund from the outplacement company, after threatening to report them to the authorities.

Alarming Concept
This alarm, raised to the righteous authorities, is simply a vain but heart felt cry, to some unseen, and benign power of 'goodness' or 'justice' that is said to pervade the complex societies in which we live. Our 'state' buildings are decorated with statues that give fantastic form to these concepts but they are rarely seen in public.

Two Sides
One side of the argument says that the company misrepresented itself but the other sides says that Mr. F’s expectations were too high. Either way there was a misalignment or lack of negotiation but Mr F's experience does highlight the naivity and vulnerability of job seekers, when they are seeking help in the most difficult of job markets in decades.

Unregulated
Job seekers can encounter a bewildering and largely unregulated array of individuals and businesses offering various levels of assistance. While some people have clearly benefited from their work, others have accused the companies of using misleading sales tactics. Selling little more than promises and vain hope.

Up Front Fees
Unprofessional “career management” or “career marketing” companies, which charge large up-front fees, are easy to stumble upon, the're on every employment Web sites. From the other side, it is certainly very easy to contact job seekers, once they have posted their résumés, they are in the public domain.

Senior Service
Given a startling choice, it is clearly more lucrative to focus on senior professionals and managers of advancing age, easily massaging their egos by claiming only to accept the most desirable and marketable candidates.

Beware of companies that place advertisements that appear to be job postings but instead are lures for their sales pitches.

Valuable Support
Many good employment and outplacement services provide valuable support and assistance, but others can easily misrepresent themselves and the effectiveness of their services, in an attempt to take your money. It is not difficult to find good, legitimate agencies that will meet your needs, but it is critical that you do your research and homework first.

Overhauling CVs
Many of the companies do little more than provide ordinary job search assistance: overhauling résumés and assisting with covering or introductory letters, giving advice on how to start networking and helping sort through open or public job listings. While this can be a legitimate and useful service, much of it you can do yourself or it can be obtained more cheaply elsewhere.

No Happy Ending
To stop you getting bored, let's look at another example. Mr B, aged 44, who managed the technology centre of an Technical college before losing his job during a restructuring, paid a career management company $5,000, after responding to what he thought was a job posting for professionals looking to earn $100,000 a year.

Instead, he got a sales pitch from a professional careers hijacker. He was told that a search for someone his age would normally take 13 months but that the company would cut that in half, guaranteed.

Magic Beans
Mr. B believed that the company was a high-end recruiter, with access to a vast and somehow magical, “hidden job market” At least that's how the company officials put it. They claimed that they had connections to positions unavailable to regular job seekers. A 'secret' path to a quick solution.

Only later, after he began working with the company, did he realise that it did not have any special pathways to job openings. He demanded a refund but got nowhere. Two years later, he still does not have a job, and the company’s charge on his credit card has helped push him and his wife to file for bankruptcy.

Summary
In the end, Mr. F was very unsatisfied with the service he received from his outplacement company but by then, he had taken another job which he got through his own efforts, using his old résumé.

Misalignment
You could claim that in both cases, the company maintained their morale and motivation over the period of unemployment and, in Mr F's case, you could equally claim that they had given him the impetus and confidence to do well during the interview but, is that what the company claimed they would do when first they met and agreed the contract, perhaps not. Perhaps the company under stated their ability to 'influence' the candidates.

Influence
The power to influence others is most effective when the other party is unaware of being manipulated or directed. Our wives and partners do it all the time and still we remain together. Only when the curtain accidently falls and the charade is revealed do we feel cheated, used and misled and then we realise it was all done for our own good.

Magic Solutions

We readily accept external influences in advertising and marketing. We even suspend our dis-belief at the movies but for some reason in desperate times and in the face of adversity, we are all too willing to believe in the 'snake oil' of instant resolutions, the 'magic bullet' of quick results, or the 'magic beans' of sustainable new growth, that the brightly dressed wizard is selling. Reality bites and sometimes it bites very hard.

Remain open to new opportunities but do not travel unguarded against old advesaries.
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