I would lay part of the blame at the feet of employers these days as well.
The amount of hoops and red tape you have to go through for a basic low wage job is laughable.
Just look at tescos ? you have to pratically go on the krypton factor to stack shelves or unload lorries it's just cringe worthy.
Employers expect too much these days almost getting to the point they expect a professional C.V and university education to be a car washer.
We need to bring back the days of just turning up and someone making a decision based upon that persons eagerness attitude and common sense not mass filtering out because the C.V wasn't in a format you like or they didn't have a masters degree to do a manual job
I applied for a warehouse job recently I have 10 years experience for national companies the job was within walking distance under a mile from where I live.
Didn't even get a reply and I know why, it's because my c.v or covering letter which was a bog standard template didn't fit in with their TOO HIGH expectations.
It is an Employer's market.
I've seen horrendous acts of salary cuts and minimum qualification increases.
A job in my place requiring 5 GCSEs A-C for £15k, increased to wanting a 1st or a 2:1 degree. People still applied.
Also cutting the higher end job salaries and forcing people to re-apply or be jobless is a very common event, sadly.