Guy Standing Quotes

The precariat consists of a growing proportion of our total society. It is being habituated to accept a life of unstable labour and unstable living. Often they're unable to say what their occupation is, because what they're doing now might be quite different from what they were doing three months ago.

People in the precariat rely very heavily on money wages.

People in the precariat find themselves in the situation where the level of their education and qualifications is almost always higher than the sort of labour that they're going to be able to obtain.

When you are a freelancer, you are always looking for a next job. There is always struggle.

Maybe you don't work for seven months a year, but you'll work again. It may be a piece of garbage, so you wear hip boots.

American capitalism today offers us no assurances that our efforts will be rewarded by security, stability or enough income to let us live well or at least well enough… Contemporary capitalism turns all workers—laborers and managers alike—into economic junk. The days if a long career with one employer, once a key part of the American dream, are long gone for most workers.

Precariousness is not just a working-class thing.

We had no money, my dad was out of work a lot, and we never owned a house. It was very hand-to-mouth.

The precariat faces chronic uncertainty about what to do, about what incomes to expect, about state benefits that might be their due, about their relationships, their homes, and about the occupations they can realistically expect.

I was working with the fire service in a job that should have been a job for life, with career progression, with a pension and promotion, and within a year I was sleeping on a sofa under a section 21 notice being evicted from my home and not eating or four days.

When people are economically or socially dislocated, they are always more vulnerable to being radicalized.

There were times when I didn't have enough money, I didn't have enough work, and I would panic.

Some people welcome the flexibility of a zero-hours contract. But their growth is symptomatic of a wider issue - increasing job insecurity and falling living standards in David Cameron's Britain.

There is already a generation of European graduates who feel they have been robbed of the better future they were led to expect. They are members of a new class: the precariat.

It's scary to not know when your next job is coming, and that is a daily fear when you are trying to act full-time.

I have invested some money and I have a home, but people don't realise that you might only be working for a few weeks of the year and remain unemployed the rest of the time.

While some people are certainly seeing economic benefits, many others are unemployed, underemployed, without health insurance and struggling to make ends meet.

Many Africans are used to a life where they get up in the morning and don't know what they're going to do that day.

The people who do not get jobs are often the most vulnerable in our society, and joblessness is a terrible plight for anyone who suffers from it.

I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.

I know people who have been without a home for ages, and lots of my friends are sofa surfing because they are in between jobs or saving for degrees and other studies - paying £500 rent every month is just not feasible for them.

When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.

I can tell you that when I travel the state, when I talk to people, they are really struggling, in a very real way. They're losing their jobs, they're losing their homes, they're dealing with financial challenges.

Where there is no work, there is no dignity.

Anybody who is in freelance work, especially artistically, knows that it comes with all the insecurity and the ups and downs. It's a really frightening life.