The world of business and finance rarely fails to deliver the odd talking point, be it banking crises or eurozone tremors, and the revelation of £60,000 a year jobs going begging in the UK was certainly one to ponder.

Elizabeth Gooch, chief executive of Staffordshire-based eg solutions, says she cannot fill six analyst and software vacancies because would-be recruits do not fancy the foreign travel involved.

Ms Gooch, who was awarded an MBE in the Jubilee Honours List for her long-standing contribution to the financial services sector, laments the loss of the 1980s ‘get on your bike’ spirit, invoking the credo of a certain Margaret Thatcher.

Political allegiances to Mrs T notwithstanding, the Staffordshire software supremo questions the culture of ‘work-life balance’ – and regrets that her firm receives no job applications from out of work youngsters.

This is a story of one firm and six vacancies, so we must tread carefully, but Ms Gooch may have a point or two. It’s over 20 years since Thatcher stalked the corridors of power, and many left-wing disciples have long looked forward to metaphorically dancing on the Iron Lady’s grave when the time duly comes.

But leaving politics aside (admittedly difficult in the case of Mrs T) there’s little doubt that the whole workplace zeitgeist is vastly different from the 1980s. Union power, often severely abused, was tamed, state-owned industries were privatised, heavy inefficient manufacturing from coal to steel and shipyards was drastically slimmed down.

You can argue till the cows come home about Thatcher’s style of politics and her effect on the nation. But ‘work-life balance’ never seemed to be part of Mrs T’s equation.

Ms Gooch blames new lifestyle choices for her struggles to fill £60,000 a year roles – and suggests a lack of enthusiasm among the young for the aforementioned 1980s ‘get on your bike’ movement.

There’s a whole host of factors at play here, from now defunct New Labour’s peculiar obsession with herding thousands of youngsters into irrelevant degree courses to a nation’s neglect of wealth-creating manufacturing jobs in favour of financial services. And look where that led us, to the October 2008 banking meltdown.

Throw into that highly volatile mix the digital revolution, with a whole new generation of youngsters staring at computer screens and imagining the world is hanging on their every utterance, and you have a scary, and possibly permanent, shift in personal values.