In despair. Husband is taking ages to find a role

The current job market is harsh. Many people chasing fewer jobs. It's an employer's market. Even getting a job stacking shelves, or casual warehouse work is very hard to come by.

I would allow 3 to 6 months for your husbsnd to get a job, if not longer.

His CV will need to be outstanding. Register with agencies and bin the less professional ones. Try to apply to companies directly.

Many vacancies have multiple stage interviews and competancy tests. Expect to have these interviews, and long nerve wracking waits in between. In most cases, post interview, you never hear from the company again. This is now standard practice. It is soul destroying.

Also, your husband has not been 'sacked'. This word implies wrongdoing. He has been made redundant as his role has been outsourced.

Also sales roles are hard to come by. What qualifications does he have? He might need to retrain.

He needs to apply for new style Jobseeker’s Allowance. It’s not means tested and he should be entitled to 6 months at £90 a week. It’s a benefit for everyone who’s contributed NI regardless of wealth.

Switch your mortgage to interest only. Ours let us do that for 6 month. Very easy to apply.

A month isn’t long at all. He needs to step up massively with his fatherhood and household duties though.

40 hours of prep? Or a few hours each day over the course of a week, with breaks for coming up with ideas etc?

Are people seriously saying it would take them a full-time working week to prepare for an interview? What do you do in this case, take a week’s worth anual leave to prepare?

Nope. Sorry but this is just wrong.

The jobs market is the hardest I've seen it for a long time. I've been looking since October, also made redundant. There are a lot more people looking than roles available - I've never been without a job, even after redundancies, and this is a very difficult time atm.

My DH is not looking for and won't be taking a NMW job for several reasons:

• he wouldn't be available for interview easily as most NMW jobs are not particularly flexible.
• lack of availability for interview increases the risk the company will hire a different person
• he'd be unavailable for calls with recruiters which is how he will get his next job.
• the time taken to apply for, interview for etc a NMW job would be better spent looking for a long term prospect.
• NMW jobs are harder to get than most people realise
• NMW employers are skeptical as hell when a high earner comes knocking
• The effort required and child care we'd need would largely negate any pay he got, especially when commuting costs are taken in to account.

She is working, didn't you read that?

He was earning 80k, you have too much savings to claim UC, so over £16k, £11k payout and you’re panicking you can’t survive 2 months??
Yes, he’s taking the piss with the swimming and bread making whilst you carry the household, time for a sit down and discuss finances and chores.

He's been completely shafted on that redundancy payout why on earth did he agree to it? Is it even legal minimum statutory redundancy money?!

Are you sure there isn't more he isn't telling you. Is it possible he's known for longer that the job was going, or faced some sort of disciplinary action that meant he would realistically have had little choice but to take the settlement?

Yabvu to have expected him to have already got something lined up - I'd expect it to take at least 6 months in this job market. Cut your costs now, starting with nursery fees and anything else that isn't an absolute must.

I could have written a lot of this, even down to my partner needing to swim!
We’ve had to be practical, I don’t want to have to work overtime but I’m picking up as many extra hours as I can to see us through.
I understand your husband being a bit down considering everything that has happened, but he can’t not work, not help around the house, and not apply for jobs! Practically, you might need to take on extra hours and he might need to be doing childcare and keeping the house going until he finds work - that’s what we’re doing.

Hello OP, I really empathize with you. I went through this exact situation many, many times with my ex. One time in particular stands out: he lost his job and it took him nine months to find another. I know job hunting is hard, but I also felt he wasn’t trying nearly enough. I’d come home from work and find him doing random things instead of looking for work, and if I asked about it he’d get defensive, like it wasn’t my business.

I thought he should be calling former colleagues or dropping off CV in person, but he refused. He insisted he was applying online only. Meanwhile, I’d come home and dinner wasn’t even started. For the first three months he mostly worked in our garden, and it drove me absolutely crazy. He also would not take any job, but was picking and choosing and we were really broke at the time. But our relationship wasn’t great and our communication was already off, which made everything worse.

My suggestion is to sit him down and talk to him now. Losing a job is stressful, sure, but you have a family to support and not much savings to fall back on. You don’t have the luxury of waiting and hoping he’ll get moving on his own. Clear expectations and an honest conversation are really important here.

IMO if he’s not working and you are in financial straits then he should be doing childcare and household stuff so you can be work more hours. I appreciate it is time consuming looking for work but it’ll be worse if you lose your house. He can do background job hunting in the evening when you are back. Frankly, given the state of the country and job market, he doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself/procrastinate/play the big man ‘chatting’ to people, he needs to hit the ground running and work with you to minimise the impact and make the best out of a difficult situation.

Facebook market place and baking bread I mean wtaf 😱

If it's any help, I got 3 of my last 4 jobs through former work colleagues, so I wouldn't be too down on his networking efforts.

Agree with other posters saying the days of banging out a few applications, getting interview for everything you apply for and and then having a good chance of an offer are long gone. At every level the competition has gone up.

I think you need to brace yourself for longer than a few weeks. Recruitment lead times are often 3 months with multiple interview rounds. He needs total into his network and really see what he can find. Tailoring his CV every time.

He needs to do this every night and look after the kids in the day. You need to go back to work.

I mean when my partner got made redundant afew years back (he was a manager at a college and they had a massive clear out) he took an evening job delivering takeaways he saw a sign in the window and went in and got started and got a part time job (24 hours) working in a vets on a reception again it was a sign in a local window.
It was not ideal and a lot less money but he got this organised within a week or so as we have kids and bills to pay and ultimately he cared about us not being in debt and not being able to manage.
He did this for 14 months with some delivery driving thrown in for good measure and he also did some decorating for friends inbetween for extra money.

It was not his field at all but he has a positive outlook and decided that any job was better than no job and keeps the money coming in and he applied for about 30 jobs had about 8 interviews then finally got a job.

when he got his current job the new employers were impressed he’d got employment straight away, no big gaps and he’d used transferable skills. He got good references and it set him up well and I think it shows he’s committed to working and he doesn’t think things are beneath him.

ultimately now more than ever tho, the jobs market is tough and there are so many candidates for each role. We recently advertised for a receptionist at our hospital and there was 67 applicants for a 20
hour job which is crazy;
But also realistically you can only spend so long applying for jobs and “speaking to people”
A couple of hours max per role once CV and personal statement is set up and if money is going to be tight he needs to consider “something” to tide him over in the interim.

My partner is 2 years out of work and still looking. Applies for ten jobs a day and still can't get anything. Has been told she has a job twice now only for them to be pulled last second.

It's tough out there

Yes, I would have thought at that level he would have been on 3 months notice for starters

Did he get legal advice? That’s madness

There is temp work. Not as much as there used to be but it’s there.

The advice to take your kids out of nursery seems practical but how easy will it be to get them back in if/when he finds work? Is he even capable of taking care of both of them without creating yet more domestic work for you? I feel for you, it sounds like a shitshow with you carrying everything daily, no wonder you're worried with no breathing space.

It can take time to get interviews and jobs but it's going to take even longer if he doesn't buck the fuck up.

Sorry you are going through this, OP. Your partner may well be procastinating, but I do think you need to manage your expectations and your anxiety. Your anxiety seems (understandably) to be off the charts, and this will be getting through to him and the children. My partner lost his job (tech industry), and it took him a year of applying and getting nowhere to decide to retrain and do something different. You will both have to be a bit more flexible.

When people are job-seeking, I have NO idea why they don't take any old job asap while they look, even if NMW, to help keep the wolves from the door. I know two people who lost their well-paid jobs and were out of work for many, many months (one still is) but won't do something they deem beneath them.

Completely agree. A thread similar to what OP has posted appears on here on pretty much a monthly basis and the OP’s report that their newly out of work husbands are floating along not doing much whilst dipping into savings. But with a family to support and a mortgage to service, the sensible thing is to cut expenses down as much as you can as soon as the redundancy is confirmed (or before) and start bringing income in, not using savings and the severance money to live on.

Those of you who are calling the OP unfair and unrealistic given the job market etc... Have you read her posts? He's baking bread and swimming! And saying he's too busy to help with childcare etc! She's worried and stressed because he's clearly taking the absolute piss.