Wasn't the 1% rise set out pre-election? It's clearly not irrelevant to the companies concerned, otherwise they'd not do it. It's clearly not irrelevant to the topic under discussion - the growth in part-time employment. So, I'd say it pretty much hit's the nail on the head.

Tesco emply 472,000 people. for simplicity lets assume all work c. 20 hours at c. £7 per hour. Tesco pays no ers NI. If instead it employed 236,000 at c. 40 hours per week, they'd be paying over 236 Million in NI each year. That's one heck of alot of cash. Actually the saving will be less as they get corporation tax relief on the NI, but you'll still be talking best part of £200 M per year. Now multiply those figures by all the other shop workers, cleaners, caterers, etc and who see what is driving part-time working for millions of people. it's government policy. Government benefit as they point to how many jobs have been created or there are in the economy.

The so called economic "puzzle" of having more people in work but a GDP that stays resolutely shrunken could be due to many factors.

Pick and mix from the following ...

a) Short term work e.g. Olympics.
b) Lack of confidence, i.e. Having listened to Gideon's doom and gloom comparing us with Greece, people could be sitting on what cash they do have and not spending it, especially when they know he's going to be cutting more in the future.
c) The trend in salaries is almost flat and, if you strip out the lucrative top end, the bottom end is going down (and it's the middle and bottom end whose cash keeps GDP turning over).
d) Privatisation shifts jobs from public to private without any change in GDP but (deceptively) looks like the private sector providing more growth than it is.
e) What are all these supposedly new jobs? If they are all very low paid they will hardly raise GDP by much. Indeed, if new jobs are less well-paid than the existing jobs, they will have a negative effect on GDP.
f) The ONS has been over-stating the recession for years.
g) Much of market economic theory depends on numbers not mood and the mood isn't good.

The big one, which ain't going to go away is competion from the Far East, etc. 9 times as many people are going through industrialisation compared with the West's industrialisation. For along time a small proportion of us have had all the wealth. That's changing fast. As I said on here the other day - we'll need to get used to working longer for less. In Singapore and Hong Kong (were people are on average better off than us after cost of living is adjusted for) they work much longer hours than us - the equivalent of 5 of our working months extra each year! As yo hard work, people in HK live on average a couple of years longer than us. That is the future. You may not like it, may think it's "not fair", but that's the future and we all need to get used to it. Our big hope is that because of difficulties in getting jobs record numbers of youngsters are setting up their own businesses. Whilst most will fail or barely scrape a living some will no doubt become the economic powerhouses of the future.

Well in victorian times people worked longer hours, and in sweatshops they work longer hours too, and they have crap standards of living

and built the accumulated wealth and infrastructure we're still living off.

If Osborne's "policy" - I use quotes advisedly - is bearing fruit, then they are strange, and bitter, fruit.

Good. I hope Titan and your other offspring have to stack shelves, part time, for an agency etc when, even after studying and doing well at school/university, they can't find a decent job.

Your applause then will be magnificent to hear.

We aren't living off the wealth accumulated in Victoria times. They did build some of the early infrastructure granted, although that has all been repaired and upgraded lots of times.

Just working longer hours does not make you a more productive or prosperous society. It's the amount of productivity, ie how much output you can produce from given inputs, that really matters. People say the steel industry in Sheffield has declined but it produces more steel per year these days than it ever has done in history, and more high tech advanced steel products as well. It just doesn't need as much labour input because it is now more efficient.

The wealth and prosperity of society on aggregate has increased significantly over recent decades. Most of this has been due to technological advances, which complement more highly skilled workers, but replace lower skilled workers. That means those at the top with the higher skills have enjoyed the benefits as their labour is worth more and also there is more demand for them hence driving up their wages. Whilst the rest have found the demand for their jobs decreasing and their wages decreasing.

Being pedantic, your statement is not quite the truth, its not common knowledge but supermarkets (or at least the two of the top four that I have knowledge of) DO tend to directly employ ALL of the people in their supermarkets and direct production factories, whereas in their warehouses its more often the fact that agency staff far outnumber direct employees.

I don't know why that should be exactly but I can guess, in fact its not a guess because I know the evidence is there in front of me every time I do my job within their walls, the majority of supermarket jobs are part time (it has to be said, often at the choice of the employee too) whereas warehouses operate on much tighter schedules and are more reliant on having the correct number of bodies on the ground to run smoothly, I say bodies because often it doesn't matter who that body is as long as there is one on site to meet the contract, this is the nature of agency work. The production units aren't so much about bodies on the ground but skill sets on the line hence the need for more control by the employer.

Titan is more likely to find himself a job as a picker in a warehouse than a 20 hour a week shelf stacker.

Titan is training to (hopefully) become a high paid professional. If he passes his exams, etc he'll start off n twice the average salary with scope for rapid improvement in pay over the subsequent few years. Mind you, he disn't seem too happy with how last weeks set of exams. went.

Young Miss D didn't want to go to University this year. She has deferred until next year. So, she started tooking for jobs this week working in shops. She took CVs round to local businesses and those in the adjacent town. She's just been 'phoned up by one asking her to start tomorrow. Delivered CV Thursday. Interviewed friday. Offered job today. So, so far as I can see Osborne has got thing going. Let's hope Miss D can work accurately and quick enough now she's going out into that real world.

There are loads of decent jobs around for people who fulfil the criteria.