So Many Men No-One Needs

Further evidence as to the problems of finding employment comes from the hoteliers and unions who are admitting that some who do get work in the hotel sector this season may get contracts for as short a period as two months. While July and August will doubtless see the "no vacancies" signs being put up by fully occupied hotels, there is a similar sign being raised in May, June and September and October when it comes to job vacancies. It's a pretty awful situation, one compounded by the numbers who arrive from the mainland and other countries looking for seasonal work. They're not going to get it. There was a lad in a bar the other day who was in desperate need of finding something or deciding to take up the option of a flight back to the UK. Maybe building was also an option? Where? Not in summer. And why would a builder take on someone who can't speak the language, even if he did have work? Communication is a pretty basic element in these health and safety times on construction sites. It's not going to happen.

As the hotels and other businesses look to get by with what staff they do have and consider employing people at the last minute nearer to the high season, the ramifications are not good. Work for a couple of months will not be sufficient to qualify for winter handouts through the social. This will just exacerbate the already lunatic situation caused by seasonality. If nothing else, perhaps the current economic problems will have made politicians really wake up from the complacency that strong summer seasons have caused and from the coma of an economy that never was that fundamentally strong. How can it be when, come 1 November, so many troop off to claim their entitlements? Not that this so many will be joined this November by those with just a couple of months work under their belts.

Against this background, one does worry about the social consequences. Crime is just one aspect. And on this ... the flower-conveying pickpockets are in action again. There was a victim along The Mile a couple of days ago. A previous target of these charmers raised the subject with the tour rep who said the matter would be mentioned and a warning given at the next welcome meeting. It wasn't. And the reason why not was that it was bad publicity. Why is warning people against pickpocketing bad publicity? I'll tell you what is, people who do get pickpocketed and then go and tell the world on the internet. Are the tour reps in the real world? Do they not understand that there is a vast communication system out there that doesn't care about so-called bad publicity, and I suppose you could include this blog in that. However, I do care, as do those who post to whatever forum issuing their own warnings. Telling people about the possibility of being fined for purchasing dodgy CDs would probably also be classified as "bad publicity". It's not quite the same as people dropping dead in the streets with swine flu. That would be bad publicity.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Genesis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d7B00rmBRE). Today's title - and women. Something of a chain thing here with yesterday.

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