Jobs, Social Security System

Jobs, Social Security System

There are a lot of different occupations in every country and they reflect the structure of national economy.
Generally we can divide them into Blue-collar and While-collar professions.
· Blue-collar are manual workers
o Maintenance man (he repairs damaged parts of a building), carpenter (works with wood), plumber (repairs pipes, sewerages, sinks…), mechanic, bricklayer, florist, dressmaker, shoemaker, butcher, baker, goldsmith…
o Craftsmen – they practice crafts – they need some special skills to do it; for example potters, woodcarvers, smiths, watchmaker…
· White-collar are intellectual workers
o it requires advanced education and special training to be white-collar worker
o white-collar professions are for example medical professions (GP, surgeon, dentist, psychologist, the teaching professions, legal professions (lawyer, solicitor, judge…) and many more (programmer, economist, chemist, journalist, rector, dean, sales manager)
 
We can divide workers according to how are they employed:
· Classical employee – he has his employer, he has to obey the employers rules and employer pays him
· Self-employed people – they work without employer, for example shopkeepers, tailors…the money they earn are their salary
· Freelance - they work without employer, or they work for different companies at different time; for example independent journalist, artists who are selling their works…
· Au-pair – a girl from abroad, who does baby-sitting and household duties and in return she has a place to live and she can study foreign languages etc.
· People providing personal services – domestic servant, charwoman, caretaker…
· The armed forces and emergency services – soldiers, sailors, pilots, police officer, firefighter
 
Working hours
· Regular (for example you work 8 hours every day, in Britain from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) x irregular (sometimes you have to work more hours, sometimes less…)
· Fixed (you have to start working at the exact time and finish at the exact time) x Flexible (you can start working earlier or finish later)
· Be on the shift system = we work in shifts (some days we are working at night and some days we are working during the day)
· Work overtime (if we want to earn more, or finish some work)
· Full-time job (8 hours) x Part-time job (less than 8 hours)
 
Incomes
· salaries – for white-collar workers, they are paid monthly to their bank account
· wages – for blue-collar workers, paid in cash, once a week
· fees – for consultants (they can be paid per hour)
· redundancy pay – for laid-off employee
· pension – for retired employee
· dividend – for shareholder
· royalty – for authors
· tax – for government
 
Looking for a job
You can look for vacancies on the internet or in the job center, and if you find a suitable job, you can fill application form (usually you have to fill in your education, qualification, experiences, references from former employee etc. and you will enclose your CV), when you are hired, you will sign a contract, with the conditions of your job
 
End of employment
· If you want to leave the job, you have to give your boss a moth´s notice (so that your boss will know in advance, that you intend to leave)
· If you violate a conditions of contract or you do something that will somehow damage the company, you will be fired
· If there is no work for you anymore, you will be made redundant
 
Social Security system
Can be found in every well-developed country, in includes maternity grants, child benefits, pensions…
Czech Republic
· all people have to pay about 8% of their monthly income to the Social Care Institution
· women get paid after birth of each child
· family allowance is paid to every family that has extremely low family income
· retired people get pensions
·  health care – every citizen is insured, we can choose our insurance company and our employer sends some money every month there, if we are self-employed, we have to pay it for ourselves
 
Great Britain
· similar system like in Czech Republic
· all citizens are insured
· women have maternity grants for their children
· there is unemployment benefit for those who lost their job and sickness benefits for those who are ill
· retired people receive retirement pension