I am using queues for the first time and I don't seem to get it to work and laravel does not seem to throw any errors.

I am trying to queue mail on user registration, that is user should be redirected to dashboard immediately and the email should be queued. How do I know if queue is not working? on clicking register I have to wait for 8 seconds before I see dashboard, I get the email on registration but queue seems to fail.

I dont see any queue jobs on mysql jobs table at the time of registration.

Below are my settings:

jobs and jobs-failed table created using below command:

php artisan queue:table
php artisan queue:failed-table
php artisan migrate

.env

QUEUE_DRIVER=database

MAIL_DRIVER=smtp

MAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=dummy@gmail.com
MAIL_PASSWORD=password
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=tls
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=hello@example.com
MAIL_FROM_NAME="App name"

RegisterController create() function

at the end of create function just before return $user;

dispatch(new NewRegisteredUser($user));

jobs file: NewRegisteredUser

namespace App\Jobs;

use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;
use Mail;
use App\User;
use App\Mail\RegisteredUserWelcome;

class NewRegisteredUser implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels;

    protected $user;
    /**
     * Create a new job instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct(User $user)
    {
        $this->user = $user;
    }

    /**
     * Execute the job.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function handle()
    {
        $email = new RegisteredUserWelcome($this->user);
        Mail::to($this->user->email)->queue($email);
    }
}

Mail file: RegisteredUserWelcome

namespace App\Mail;

use App\User;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;

class RegisteredUserWelcome extends Mailable
{
    use Queueable, SerializesModels;

    protected $user;
    /**
     * Create a new message instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct(User $user)
    {
        $this->user = $user;
    }

    /**
     * Build the message.
     *
     * @return $this
     */
    public function build()
    {
        return $this->markdown('emails.registered')
            ->with([
                        'firstname' => $this->user->firstname,
                        'lastname' => $this->user->lastname,
                    ]);
    }
}

Am I missing something here? I dont get error and mail is sent but no queue jobs observed in mysql and long wait time on registration.

I am also confused how this: https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/mail#queueing-mail fits with this https://laravel.com/docs/5.4/queues Why do we need queues separately when we already have queuing in mail?

What should I use and how? All I need to do is reduce the wait-time of users and send mails behind the scene. Also, I am sending multiple emails in some cases. I guess this would help if I queue the jobs of multiple emails.