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The Forum > General Discussion > Burgeoning Population Leading To Make- Work Schemes

Burgeoning Population Leading To Make- Work Schemes

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To Ttbn- I tend to agree with you that there are too many people in the world and in Australia.

Foxy said- "We have a society that simply fails to produce enough skilled workers in select vital fields (esp. medicine) therefore we
desperately need skilled migrants to fill in the large gaps."

Answer- **When there are not enough skilled workers in the nation it indicates a management issue in the system.** There is currently too much politics in hospitals and health care education- patient care is suffering. Generally I find that if you break down a subject there will be a level that everyone will be able to understand- even medicine. Certain universities a few years ago created Medicine courses so that Applied Sciences graduates (such as RN's) could study Medicine. In the 70's employers used to put more effort into going to the universities to get potential employees. Nurses used to do much more on the job training this provided graduates with enough training for self sufficiency. Hospitals used to do their own training. There used to be better job security.

To O Sung Wu- Aged or elderly people are stars. It's disappointing that our culture has become fragmented so that the Aged are separated from their families and the communities where they have lived their earlier lives. In older times people used to spend their lives in one place- the young, adults, and elderly all had integral mutually supporting parts to play in the community. Mass culture is perhaps to blame for the change- once again it comes down to population and fragmentation. But there are different groups in the community for which self sufficient / supporting communities are undesirable.
Posted by Canem Malum, Sunday, 29 July 2018 2:19:19 AM
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//People working in the hospitality industry do have an impact, and they do provide a wanted service.//

I didn't say it wasn't wanted... just rather pointless.

//It is when you get into administration you find the really useless jobs.//

Yeah, I've worked in a few places that suffered from too many chiefs and not enough indians. One in particular stands out - a club, which seemed to have more staff in the office than it ever did out on the floor. I often found myself wondering just what it was that they did all day. For example, they had a full time 'payroll manager'. Except that when I started at that place, payroll software was up to the point where it was largely a data entry job which, given the number of employees, probably amounted to all of half a day's work if you type with one finger and take a few coffee breaks and a long lunch. So what was this person doing for the other 4.5 days that they were being paid for?

By the time I left they had bought this whiz-bang new bundy clock where you had to scan your thumbprint to clock on, except the damn thing never worked so after about the 7th unsuccessful scan you just gave up and punched in a numeric code, which was pretty much what you did before without all the faffing about with a dodgy scanner. Money well spent there - that's the danger of too many staff and not enough work, they run out of things do and start looking for ways to fix what isn't broken. Anyway, as well as not reading thumbprints properly, the new device automatically sent the payroll data straight to the software, cutting out the middle man. So now the payroll officer apparently had nothing to do... and still kept their job. Presumably they were now employed on a full-time basis to think up more hare-brained schemes with which to waste money.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Sunday, 29 July 2018 8:09:49 AM
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Volunteers, in many cases, save the taxpayer money at the expense of those who need employment.
Posted by Is Mise, Sunday, 29 July 2018 10:01:44 AM
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Even back in 1930, economist Keynes predicted that most people would have to work a mere 15 hours a week. Technology would handle the rest. I'm not sure how he could say this in 1930, but his prediction was correct. Most of the 'menial' jobs have disappeared, and a good many of middle management has ceased to exist. Yet, the 15 hour week never came to be, because so many bulls..t jobs have been created, instead of necessary work being divided up so that everybody contributes but has a decent lifestyle.

Next time you get held up by ‘roadworks’, the person holding up the ‘stop’ sign will be working for a private company. That person and his/her colleagues will have put up the warning signs - and will probably forget them and you will have to crawl along at 25kph on a Sunday when there isn’t a worker in sight. In the past, signs were carried, and traffic controlled, by the gang from the local council or government department already doing the work. Now, the wage bill has increased, and ratepayers and taxpayers have to wear it.

As an ex-public servant, I remember the regular purges of clerical staff when governments wanted to waste money on something else. Big payouts to encourage people to go. Afterwards, the workload did not change, and the staff left behind DID NOT have to work harder. And this happened many times during my working life. Public service employment, in the main, just covers up real unemployment figures. There is simply not enough work for the number of people on the public purse to keep them working for a whole day.

Outsourcing by governments is another make- work scheme. The number of unnecessary jobs invented for the private sector tsars to get rich on at our expense is legion. I believe that people would be stunned if they took the time to sit quietly and think about the paid work that they, or anyone else, would not miss if it didn’t exist.
Posted by ttbn, Sunday, 29 July 2018 10:48:30 AM
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Indeed TTBN you have a point there. In my own industry, many of the long serving hackneyed old sergeants liked to hide in some meaningless job behind a desk somewhere the last year or two before they retire.

Sadly they manage to obtain these non-tasks because some sympathetic Superintended. who they worked with years ago owe's them. So they create this 'non-job' in their command for their former colleague.

Clearly this is wrong on two levels; (i) the taxpayer demands the best bang they can get for their hard earned; and (ii) it's a wicked waste of resources to allow these non-jobs to flourish, especially in the Publish Service. Moreover they hold down a Position Number' that would be better used, by a younger, better Officer.

As an addendum: I often wondered if certain occupations should have a 20 year ceiling on retirement? All police in the US have it, as does the FBI, DEA ATF etc. It doesn't mean that can't continue beyond their 20 years, if they are mentally and physically fit enough, but they have the option of retiring at a relatively young age if they join up, in their twenties even thirties. The Australian Defence Forces have just such a scheme I believe?
Posted by o sung wu, Sunday, 29 July 2018 11:59:04 AM
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The most egregious make-work scheme has been in the electricity industry. Where governments once produced electricity, and performed every task from generation, maintenance and receiving payment, we now have many private companies doing nothing but collect money. Done in the name of 'competition' which is supposed to reduce prices, this 'competition' has seen power prices skyrocket ever since (quite apart from the wind and sun fiasco).

o sung wu,

Yes. Out with the old and in with the new. The Marxists seem to believe that when it comes values and morals; not so keen when it comes to their cushy, taxpayer-funded sinecures. I also believe that politicians should be restricted to two terms, then put out into the real world. But that isn't likely to occur either.
Posted by ttbn, Sunday, 29 July 2018 12:39:35 PM
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