4 ms·

It's the economy, stupid.

• newsclues 2y ago
  It’s the government policies. Housing and employment are affected by the supply and demand. Housing is expensive because there are too many people for the number of homes. Jobs are poorly paid and rare because there are too many workers looking for jobs. Why is the government flooding the market with people given the negative effects?
  • Angostura 2y ago
    The unemployment rate is relatively low at 4.4%. The pernicious gig economy may certainly be driving low wages, but the government is starting to clamp down on that. Housing is arguably expensive because it is being treated as an investment opportunity. I remember when the 2012 Olympic Villiage flats were put up for sale. Many locals were excited at the prospect. In the end most were snapped-up by firms buying 10s or hundreds of them
    • zelos 2y ago
      The official unemployment figures hide a lot of detail, though. It looks like youth unemployment is roughly 3 times the overall rate, plus anecdotally there's a lot of under-employment: intelligent young people with decent degrees working minimum wage jobs etc. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgwy/lms https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...