Verdicts · Employment
What the UK thinks about employment
Settled referendums
11
since Jul 2026
Votes cast
2,913
all time, on employment
This week
1,570
votes · 3 referendums settled
Written opinions
123
all time, left by voters
This week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion this week
“Calling every NEET lazy is a pretty lazy argument in itself. Some young people will obviously make poor choices, but when nearly a million are outside work or education, it suggests something bigger is going wrong. If most actually want to work or train, we should be asking why they can't access those opportunities.... Better apprenticeships, technical education and proper support make far more se”
BenL, debating Yes on “Is Andy Burnham correct that young people who are NEET are not lazy but just need proper opportunities?” · read the thread →
5
Respects
Most respected on employment this week
- 1.BenL8 respects
- 2.HardCompact7 respects
- 3.Dragontao7 respects
- 4.OftenRight6 respects
- 5.Slawomir6 respects
Who answered this week
The 711 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
Regions this week
Votes each week
1,570so far this week
All-time employment highlights
Biggest landslide
YES 79%
Is AI a threat to jobs?
79% of 498 votes went the same way.
Closest result
YES 51%
Should the UK have more Bank Holidays?
Decided by 2 votes.
Most debated
NO 53%
Should public sector employees who work entirely from home be paid less than those who work fully on site?
33 written opinions.
This week
3 settled · 1,570 votes
Should public sector employees who work entirely from home be paid less than those who work fully on site?
The verdict
“You pay people for the work they deliver, not the chair they sit in” was the room’s cleanest answer to a close vote: No prevailed, but the debate exposed a genuine fight over whether fairness means output or the cost of showing up.
Is Andy Burnham correct that young people who are NEET are not lazy but just need proper opportunities?
The verdict
“Calling every NEET lazy is a pretty lazy argument in itself” captured the room: Yes won by nearly three votes to two, despite the winning side arguing for routes into work, not a free pass.
Is AI a threat to jobs?
The verdict
“The threat is the bottom of the ladder” was the room’s sharpest diagnosis: Yes won decisively, despite the most-respected arguments insisting disruption creates new work.
Last week
2 settled · 792 votes
Should the government provide as much employment support for people aged 50+ who are unemployed as it does for 18-24?
The verdict
Older workers were not asking to displace the young so much as to be counted; the chamber’s sharpest Yes line cut through the either/or: “It's not an either/ or - it's both.”
Is the current Labour government responsible for the increase in youth unemployment?
The verdict
A rise that “didn't begin under Labour” still drew a narrow charge of responsibility, while the debate kept returning to an older story of austerity, weak investment and missing entry-level work.
Every employment verdict
- NO 53%Should public sector employees who work entirely from home be paid less than those who work fully on site?“You pay people for the work they deliver, not the chair they sit in” was the room’s cleanest answer to a close vote: No prevailed, but the debate exposed a genuine fight over whether fairness means output or the cost of showing up.
- YES 59%Is Andy Burnham correct that young people who are NEET are not lazy but just need proper opportunities?“Calling every NEET lazy is a pretty lazy argument in itself” captured the room: Yes won by nearly three votes to two, despite the winning side arguing for routes into work, not a free pass.
- YES 79%Is AI a threat to jobs?“The threat is the bottom of the ladder” was the room’s sharpest diagnosis: Yes won decisively, despite the most-respected arguments insisting disruption creates new work.
- YES 76%Should the government provide as much employment support for people aged 50+ who are unemployed as it does for 18-24?Older workers were not asking to displace the young so much as to be counted; the chamber’s sharpest Yes line cut through the either/or: “It's not an either/ or - it's both.”
- YES 52%Is the current Labour government responsible for the increase in youth unemployment?A rise that “didn't begin under Labour” still drew a narrow charge of responsibility, while the debate kept returning to an older story of austerity, weak investment and missing entry-level work.
- NO 67%Do we need to re-strengthen our trade unions giving them more power over government?Two to one against, and with hardly a spark from either flank to explain the size of it, this was a rout on numbers rather than rhetoric — the No camp piled up votes far in excess of the arguments it bothered to make.
- YES 51%Should the UK have more Bank Holidays?A question that should split neatly along generational lines about work and rest instead produced a coin-toss, with Yes prevailing by the narrowest of margins on a question that pits the economics of lost output against the politics of a stagnant-wage, longer-working-life workforce.
- YES 75%Should the UK set a legal maximum workplace temperature?Three in four voters here backed a legal cap on workplace heat, but the loudest consensus came from the group you'd least expect to need it: the 25-34s, who backed a legal cap almost unanimously, while their older colleagues in the 35-44 bracket split clean down the middle.
- YES 61%Will AI and advanced robotics replace most jobs in the next 50-100 years?Rather than splitting neatly by generation or gender, the vote here converged from every direction, a rare thing on refnation: working-age Britain, from those starting careers to those approaching retirement, arrived at roughly the same uneasy conclusion.
- YES 65%Are young people less willing to work difficult or long-hour jobs at the start of their careers than previous generation?YES carried the chamber 65-35, but the closest thing to a clean vote came from 35-44 year-olds, who split 8-0 — the only age band unanimous, and pointedly not the young people the question is actually about.
- NO 59%Does the Minimum Wage strangle job creation?No, the minimum wage does not strangle job creation, voters here decided, by 19 to 13 — a clear but not crushing verdict, with men far more sceptical of the wage floor than the small number of women who voted.