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27th March 2006, 07:00 PM
Quote:quote:Conservation is seen as one such option. What we should be considered is why such unqualified people would be welcomed into field archaeology not their age.
I agree, and I have huge problems with the units that employ unqualified people of any age; but somehow it is more annoying when young archaeologists are losing out on a job and pay that they are desperate for, to people who often don't need the job or the money. And it probably reinforces some of the interested amateur legacy that archaeology has inherited.
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27th March 2006, 08:20 PM
I really dont agree with this idea that jobs should not be given to to "people who often don't need the job or the money". It is a matter of choice why people work and you have to accept that older people are less likely to need the money.
What is important is that people can do the job. Will you be arguing for early retirement for the over 50s to create more managers jobs? Or means testing before appointment for a diggers role. How about a return to having to be unemployed before you could get a job in archaeology.
I feel very old writing this. If somebody want to work for the fun of it in archaeology or anything else there should be nothing to stop them doing so provided they can do the job.
Peter Wardle
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27th March 2006, 10:29 PM
No of course not. The market means that those who want to work will eventually get a chance with some employer. And those who are able to subsidize poor pay by other means are going to have an advantage over the new grads burdened by debt. It just seems such a backwards step for the profession where the interested hobby archaeologists of independent means can outcompete a young committed professional wanting a career.
Archaeology will not be regarded as a profession while this is the case. It will be seen as a dilletante hobby.
Actual ability to do the job is often immaterial when "the job" is to turn up, dig a few holes, and not complain too much when the site ends before all the archaeology is satisfactorily dug or recorded.
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27th March 2006, 10:36 PM
Code:
Second careers after early retirement is a normal thing to do to top up the pension. Low stress fun jobs are the order of the day. I know of bank managers and lawyers who have become gardeners.
Re-reading this I am getting quite angry. Why should I have sympathy with bank managers or lawyers who want to top up their pensions by working cheaply in my field. I will get no more pension than I have been able to squirrel away on a low professional salary; no company pension scheme for me. Lawyers or bankers who have not got enough only have themselves to blame. At least they are likely to get some state pension, while I'm sure I will get none. I'm paying for
[u]their </u> pension.
Selfish bloody baby boomers!
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28th March 2006, 12:34 AM
There is a real danger here of categorizing and generalising about someone's motives based on their age or the fact that they previously had a different career and have come to archaeology as a wage paying job later in life, or on the basis they are not 'qualified'. What is meant by qualified anyway? Some may have years of experience with local archy societies or done months on training excavations. They may have been to a variety of practical and theory evening classes and have read anything and everything they can to improve their knowledge and skills. So in fact some of them may be better 'qualified' to do the job than your average normal age graduate straight out of uni. Just have't got the right bits of paper.....
Then there is the financial side. If we are to deny people a digging career because they can afford not to work, do we therefore means test all job applicants ? What about a 23 year old archaeology graduate with an independent income of some sort? They will be able to 'manage' financially between contracts and can afford to be not working. Same could be said for a 30-something digger, like myself, who may be married to someone who has a well paid job (doctor, lawyer, computer programmer for example) ? I can afford to have periods of unemployment. I would rather be working, doing the job I have chosen to do but if there is no work, I won't starve or be unable to pay my (very small by today's standards) mortgage. The financially independent 23 year old grad and myself are competing for the same jobs as less financially secure diggers AND there must be a much greater proportion of people like us in the job market than the semi-retired part-timers. So should we also be cast out of our chosen profession in order to make way for diggers with more pressing financial needs?
Mercenary said
Quote:quote:I agree, and I have huge problems with the units that employ unqualified people of any age;.
In most professions/jobs with a practical element (as there obviously is in archaeology) most training is done 'on the job', with day release etc at college to get the paper qualies and theory. I would argue that it should be duty of units, wherever practical, to take on at least a proportion of 'green' trainees (with degree or no degree). Why expect them all to have been trained (and that training to have been paid for) by someone else?
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28th March 2006, 12:49 AM
Shame on you Mercenary, after admitting last week on another BAJR strand to having enjoyed with your colleagues several inflation busting pay rises over the past few years, refusing to name your employer for 'fear of the competition' from other archies for your job, then to lecture us on the inequalities of low pay in archaeology and the threat from those with greater financial independence. Pots, kettles and red faces all round I think!![:I]
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28th March 2006, 03:17 PM
I am delighted to learn that, contrary to my previous understanding, there are numerous potential employers clamouring for my services, as an, (ahem) middle aged[:I] (I prefer the term Late Youth) second career type person.
Having given up a well paid job to study the subject I love full-time, (instead of driving milesafterwork in the evenings and weekends to study and practise), but not having a pension, savings or any other income to keep me going except the support of my partner, I feared that an existence of stacking shelves in supermarkets up to and beyond retirement would be the price of my two year's indulgence. Not so, it seems, my grey hairs* and gnarled old limbs will be no more a hindrance than a lack of many year's circuit hacking - provided I can happily undercut the pink-cheeked cheribic young scamps of course, and consign them to the supermarket.
*Not really. Full head of glossy dark hair!
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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28th March 2006, 07:09 PM
Yep Ok. I'll grant that the whole subject is not one conducive to solutions (certainly not the sarcastic ones proffered so far) and therefore shouldn't be on this forum. More of an ill thought out rant.
I would like to defend myself on the charge of hypocrisy though. With my relatively high (for the industry)wage and inflation busting pay rises, I am just about keeping my head above water. And it's taken a long hard marginal slog to get here. I cannot afford a mortgage, don't have children, and don't have a pension, and have no real hope of acquiring any of them even in the long term.
Lastly, I don't really want to name my employer, not because of fear of competition (that was a joke) but because I am prone to ill thought out rants and would like to remain semi-anonymous. I'll shut up now.[:I]
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28th March 2006, 08:33 PM
I am a bit surprised by the notion that mercenary will get no state pension. In order to do this he must have never paid NI conributions that is he has never been in proper legal paid legal employment.
The pensions I am talking about are contributory ones 11% for government workers where either the employer or the employee contribute not state pensions and subsequently early retirement/unemployment results.
My point is a simple one jobs should not be means tested. The best person for the job should be appointed. People should not be discriminated on grounds of relative wealth or age.
For example if I applied for a digging job should it be given to a new guaduate or myself?
Peter Wardle
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29th March 2006, 06:38 PM
I think the changing population demographic will take care of the state pension fairly soon. The government really hasn't come up with anything to resolve the problem except the idea of forcing people to save for retirement, so the state doesn't have to. That in itself should indicate what they believe will happen. I hope I am wrong.
I believe that the NI I am currently paying goes to the current crop of pensioners. The idea that I am paying in to a fund that I will get back when I retire is I believe a myth. The money will be long spent. Evidence of this is the fact that the the demographic bulge AKA the baby boom generation is contibuting/causing the looming pension crisis. There simply aren't enough of the younger generations to pay an aging populations pension payouts. If all the baby boomers NI that they had paid in, was sitting in a fund somewhere there would be no problem. But it isn't.
