New sandwich factory seeks workers from Hungary, says not enough locals applied

[claig]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2827625/Factory-bosses-forced-recruit-Hungary-locals-not-apply.html

What type of contracts are on offer? Could it be zero contract etc?

[WetAugust]

guess who won't be buying their sandwiches

[Isitmebut]

Dear, dear me ….. from the two ‘kippers who bleat ‘we ARE a serious party, not a mono anti immigrant policy party, trawling for 'kipper far rights votes’.

I know you are not ‘detail’ people, but may I suggest that you read your own link, as this supermarket story does not appear to ‘stack up’.

Point number ONE, as economically speaking there is no such thing as FULL employment, I can understand that a local jobless rate of 6.8% MIGHT be a problem for minimum wage employment for several reasons e.g. those unemployed by be highly trained and/or relatively recently been made unemployed, and still looking to get back into what they were doing.

“Mrs Russell said low unemployment meant few locals could be found to fill vacancies, although there are around 8,000 jobless in the town, a rate of 6.8 per cent – the national average – while in nearby Corby it is 9.5 per cent and Luton 8.7 per cent.”

Point number TWO, why isn’t the Coalitions tougher benefits policies making it ‘pay more to work’ than receive benefits kicking in and at least getting some of those unemployed to apply for these jobs?

Point THREE, and this is key, how long does it take to train to make a decent ‘wiggy, over 1-month, over 1 –year – as UNLESS these people are going to be paid NOW, what is the point of those currently looking to for better paid jobs NOW, applying for jobs that starts “early 2016”?

“The £35million factory, in Northampton, is due to open in early 2016.”

Even a ‘heartless’ coalition couldn’t force unemployment people to come off benefits in November 2014, to take a job than won’t pay until “early 2016”. D’uh.

[ReallyTired]

I think its a bit stupid to start recruiting for a minimum wage job in two years time. Most people on the dole want a job NOW in 2014.

[LittleBairn]

claig I'm would bet money its zero hours contract and its put people claiming benefits off. Its too much of a risk to suddenly find yourself with 0 hours but unable to access the benefits system because you have a job.
Another issue with 0 hours is the inability to plan childcare etc because you have little say in the hours.
I did a 0 hours contract it was miserable we were regularly pressurised into work extremly long hours 6 days a week (when we were told it would likely only be 2 nights a week) and then suddenly without any notice cut down to 1 night.

[LittleBairn]

And yes very odd they would recruit so long in advance. Weird.

[Isitmebut]

The Germans are coming, the Brits can stuff their badly paid worker 'widges' where the sun don't shine - 35,000 new Aldi jobs just announced.

Re Zero Hours Contracts, which I believe 'employ' around 5% of the workforce (or is it population?), I remember looking a while back, but could not find the answer - out of interest does anyone know how long have they been around for, 5, 10, 15-years plus?

[WetAugust]

The whole thing is ridiculous.

When you start on any enterprise you identify what resources you will require, not just to build, but to sustain that neterprise.

One of the most costly resources is staff. Therefore, you need to be pretty sure that you are not building an empty white elephant that cannot function becuase it has no staff.

So sensible companies tend to buidl where the staff they need will be available to them. If a company cannot attract those from the normal churn of the workforce in which they are intending to build the question has to be asked why?

I dont think you need any specialist skills to make sandwiches that could not be learnt relatively quickly, so its not a skills shortage that is stopping them hiring local people, so one is inclinced to think the wage is uncompetitive - hence the need to advertise and hire staff from outside the UK.

And this Govt will probably have to subsidide their low wages with Tax credits etc. But of course as w are constantly told (by Universities that recive many millions of Euros from the EU each year) that immigrant labour from within the EU "a good thing".. Sure it is. While the normally UK resident workforce reamins on the dole.

Welcome to the wonderful EU that all 3 major parties really adore.

[LittleBairn]

isitme when I had 0 hours contract it was about 5 years ago and I think a fairly new practice.

[ReallyTired]

The middle classes who buy cheap sandwiches benefit from people working on low incomes to make them. I suspect that a lot of the sandwich makers will be on "apprenticeships" taking two years to learn how to make a sandwich at £95 a week.

[OldLadyKnowsBeelzebub]

About 15 years ago I took on care work with an agency. It was quite specific carework, at one venue and with one service-user group only (not domestic) but hours were not guaranteed. Some weeks I worked 60 hours, others none, most weeks about 30. Does that count as zero hours?

More recently, my DS took on a pt job in a fast food outlet about 6 years ago, that was zero hours from the off (and I was horrified that such a thing existed!)

[LittleBairn]

My mum is currently on 0 hours temp contract she works a physically demanding job she has just worked 12 days straight she had a day off yesterday an now on another 6. The pressure to work whatever hours they are given is immense.
Because she's temp she has had to take a week off every 10 weeks but due to her being offered a permant contract they insisted she forgo her recent holiday because she was just changing over but her new contact has been delayed again and again meaning she has been 5 months without a holiday and its looking like many more months before she can get one. All the while working anywhere between 6-12 days at time.
She has been told that once she's permant she won't be allowed any extra hours (even though the hours aren't enough for the position she is doing) because its too expensive that's why they have 0 hours contractors.

[ArcheryAnnie]

Eh, it's the Mail. I'm still reeling from the Mail article at the weekend (which someone sent me) which painted Wilfred Owen - THAT Wilfred Owen, on Remembrance Sunday - as a lily-livered cowardly pinko pacifist child-abuser (presumably because in Mail Land, being gay is the same as being a child abuser). This masterpiece was written by a brave English teacher who bravely takes tourists on tours of TERRIFYINGLY DANGEROUS battlefields a mere century after the battles were over.

Another day, another Mail article. In the meantime, the Independent are leading on climate change.

[ArcheryAnnie]

Having said that, if the Mail had led with the same story, but a more accurate headline like "SKINFLINT SANDWICH CO CAN'T PERSUADE PEOPLE WITH SETTLED LIVES TO WORK FOR SOD-ALL", then that would have been worth reading.

[ouryve]

Re Zero Hours Contracts, which I believe 'employ' around 5% of the workforce (or is it population?), I remember looking a while back, but could not find the answer - out of interest does anyone know how long have they been around for, 5, 10, 15-years plus?

I had a student, back in 1996, who worked for a well known pizza chain on what was a zero hours contract.

[cupofsneeze]

I bet the local job centre will be chuffed as nuts when all those people on the Dole rock up and say "dont worry i've applied for a job that starts in 2016"

If they did what Lidls and Tesco have done around here and advertised several weeks before the business went live then you can bet they would have been inundated with local applications even if the money is shit and only offering 0 hour contracts.

Its yet another report to bash those lazy Brits allegedly living lavishly on benefits!

[Isitmebut]

cupofsneeze ...I agree with you, UK worker bashing, with little substance.

Littlebairn & ouryve ..... re how long has this Zero Hour malarky been around, you both kinda highlight my confusion; based on the fuss re the concept, I originally assumed they must be new, but then I thought I saw a reference to the 1990's.

Has it taken a honking great recession and a lowering of 'real' (inflation adjusted) earnings, for people to focus on the downside of such contracts (which apparently does work for some) and think of reform?

[sleepyhead]

I was working a zero hour contract in a pizza chain in the early 90s. It was common for us to be "punished" for any transgression (eg declining to work "optional" extra hours for any reason) by having our shifts drastically cut the following week.

Sometimes you'd have your shifts cut and then get a last minute phone call to get your arse into work.

I was a student and using the job as supplementary cash, so it would just mean a lean week rather than falling behind in rent, but it would have been difficult to have worked a family life around.

[slug]

The response on Twitter has been funny though

[LittleBairn]

Isit I imagine its been around under different guises.
sleepyhead that was pretty much my experience too and disciplinary meetings even though you had worked 50+ already that week but had to decline a so called optional shift.

[Isitmebut]

WetAugust .. re you point 'companies tend to build where staff will be available for them'.... well based on the company start up/running costs excluding or including salaries, clearly the further out of the South East they go, the more staff that will be available to them.

So transport connectivity/transport overcrowding is important to companies investing outside the South East in the first place.

Maybe Mr Farage who recognized that fact in 2010 by suggesting electrifying 3 new UK train lines, but then cancelled that and opposed the HS2 project, can understand your point that 'build it and they'll come' doesn't always work, so needs more infrastructure/logistical/staffing thought along with government help if needed.

[LittleBairn]

slug at the Bush sandwich I though it was George Osborne.

[Isitmebut]

Just a thought, re lower skilled repetitive jobs we take for granted, we believe pay rates should go up and that immigration is the main threat – I’d suggest history shows that there comes a point when companies look for more cost effective measures than person power.

Automation 'Threatens A Third Of UK Jobs'

“How safe is your job? A report finds robots and other advances are threatening employment prospects in a number of key sectors.”
news.sky.com/story/1370335/automation-threatens-a-third-of-uk-jobs

“More than one third of the UK's working population is at risk of being replaced over the next 20 years as technology evolves, a report has warned.”

The good news is that many jobs lost to the likes of China, could be ‘onshored’ back to the west, as their costs including salaries have risen,

But the countries more likely to benefit in the west are those with well educated and flexible workers, favourable business rates/conditions and good infrastructure, including transport and a high speed internet - so we're getting there.

[WetAugust]

I don't think we can justify the environmentally damaging HS2 project on the basis that a London office wore will get their sandwich 20 mins earlier

Since Mrs T virtually killed off the unions, things have swung too far the other way and the workforce is now being exploited in a way that is breathtaking

Zero hours

Short term contracts

Holiday pay based on a basic pay that is much lower than the overtime-enhanced pay you receive every week

Workfare - slave labour masquerading under the fig leave of 'work experience'

Unpaid internships - almost mandatory in some careers

Minimum wages that a worker cannot live on without Governemnet handouts.

It's you and me as tax payers who are funding this abuse as the Govt seeeks to keep its big business mates happy.

[Isitmebut]

WetAugust ... did UKIP find in 2010 3 enviro friendly train lines, that we could join up and see where it takes us? lol

Clearly the shortened train journey is one aspect, what is UKIP's projected growth in the population in the next 10-20 years based on our current birthrate - both nationally and within the northern regions this project will eventually cover - never mind the increase in freight usage.

Re the workforce, I'm still trying to find UKIPs (or anyone elses) joined up policies in 2010 that even hinted of job creation policies, never mind 1.8 million which some politician say only benefit the rich - and as UKIP also wanted to take Public Sector staff back to 1997 levels, they'd have another 1-2 million jobless on their hands.

'Big business mates' are wot, 100 or 250 companies, one of which funds directly, formulates the policies of, and is Treasurer of, UKIP e.g. I.G. Index?

Small to medium sized companies are still struggling, how many 10's of thousands of shops have closed, still closing, that could have afforded much higher pay rates?

The coalition (prob Lib Dems) have brought in more worker friendly policies, that if you promise to apologise for being ignorant when I find them, I'll be assed to take the time look them up.

The coalition have lowered personal taxes to help, lower taxes to employers to help stimulate job growth , including National Insurance Labour put up in 2010, the coalition cancelled and cut entirely for hiring young people etc etc etc.

We are coming out of, the rest of Europe is still in, the worst recession for around 100-years; look it up what happens to pay rates in a recession and find me ONE recession over the past 100-years where pay rates went UP not DOWN, large or small - at least with growth we can even CONSIDER tax cuts, rather than rises.

I guess in the Cult of Farage, he'd decree a ban on recessions and his minions will believe he can do it. lol

[WetAugust]

Isitmebut

Most of your last post is irrelevant to the subject being discussed.

UKIP also wanted to take Public Sector staff back to 1997 levels, they'd have another 1-2 million jobless on their hands.

I am one of those who were made redundant under Tory public sector cuts - you know, that party you are always bigging up. Quite frankly there are areas of the public sector that could do with another good trimming, just as there are other areas of the PS in which staff levels are woefully inadequate.

'Big business mates' are wot, 100 or 250 companies, one of which funds directly, formulates the policies of, and is Treasurer of, UKIP e.g. I.G. Index?

Big business are the tax dodgers that HMRC has allowed to flourish and we now know that our 'EU partner' Luxenbourg also worked against its so-called 'EU partners in giving tax benefits to companies there.

Small to medium sized companies are still struggling, how many 10's of thousands of shops have closed, still closing, that could have afforded much higher pay rates?

If you cant afford to pay your staff properly you should not be in business. Full stop. I am not paying my taxes to prop up failing businesses.

The coalition (prob Lib Dems) have brought in more worker friendly policies, that if you promise to apologise for being ignorant when I find them, I'll be assed to take the time look them up.

For those rich enough to afford them. Not everyone can afford the salry reduction to take benefit of increased paternity leave etc.

The coalition have lowered personal taxes to help, lower taxes to employers to help stimulate job growth , including National Insurance Labour put up in 2010, the coalition cancelled and cut entirely for hiring young people etc etc etc.

What does this have to do with a Northampton sandwich factory. It hasn't worked has it if this company has to import staff from Hungary? I agree that Clegg did get Osborne to increase the tax thresholds - stil not by enough.

We are coming out of, the rest of Europe is still in, the worst recession for around 100-years; look it up what happens to pay rates in a recession and find me ONE recession over the past 100-years where pay rates went UP not DOWN, large or small - at least with growth we can even CONSIDER tax cuts, rather than rises.

I have lived through many recessions. This is the first in which pay levels have declined.

I guess in the Cult of Farage, he'd decree a ban on recessions and his minions will believe he can do it. lol

Yourpersonal views - I'm not that stupid.