Job market is awful

What should they do instead?? Many jobs that don't need a degree want people with degrees these days, just because they can.

Yes I completely agree that skilled trades are a great career for a lot of young people and more people should be going into them.

But they are not for everyone and this doesn’t solve the problem for the people whose skills are more oriented towards knowledge work. If we don’t support people who want this kind of work they will eventually seek work overseas.

AI is good for writing code and debugging but that's not just what IT is about. Developers spend time talking to other areas of the business, building or customising processes and workflows, integrating software with other systems, dealing with data inconsistencies, migrating data, improving performance, improving security, testing (though a lot is automated, we find it still needs manual input). AI is good for repetitive tasks but you'd still need an experienced developer to check that code and debugs.

It's awful out there and I don't think a lot of people understand.

I've been trying to get a new job to locate out of my town for over a year. People know I want to move and seem baffled as to why I haven't moved yet. I feel like I'm stalling but I just can't get a job!

they are scared into going.

Far too many people needlessly go to university.

Life is shit and then you die.

the only time i was happy in my whole life was when I taught English for two summers in Spain.

I stopped doing it as people kept telling me that it wasnt a reliable job and I worried about my future. Money is low in that area but life was fun and i could move around

Now I wish Id followed my own path

I never really understand I.T Jobs. Surely most things in I.T can be detected and fixed automatically?
A lot of coding can be done automatically.
What do I.T people do? So many people seem to be working in I.T

We are a small business and can't supervise trainee finance roles, thats not our skillset. Our accountants do apprenticeships, and thats has a very low success rate and puts a supervision burden on them which means they aren't doing paid work.
The days of decent subsidies for trainees and apprenticeships are long gone. It needs to come back if Government is serious about it.

True words.

Remote working and oursourcing has existed forever in my sector (IT). We coped. AI is potentially a much bigger threat - and one that affects those remote workers in India just as much as ones here in Europe - arguably more so as those Indian developers tend to be more junior and the work that they do is more easily done by Claude etc, than the stuff that our more senior European-based staff do.

I’m staying in a job I hate purely because it looks so rough out there.

The UK is not doing well. That's for sure.

Well obviously, where do you think that comes from. A lot of them have had a lot of struggle.

I work with an Indian woman. She said that her family sacrificed a huge amount to move to the UK, they put all their money into her education. Now she supports her parents with her money

Unfortunately, AI has taken knowledge from one of the most prized human abilities - which took academic skills and years of hard work to achieve - to a low value commodity which can be had with a few clicks. The 'knowledge economy' is increasingly a thing of the past.

It's a fundamental change and I don't think we're prepared for the consequences to come.

Have you considered apprenticeships? The big 4 are offering these as a non-degree route now - it seems a no-brainer that local firms should offer them to.

It is true. We have some Indian people working for us (in the office, in the UK, paid UK wages...) and we have to force them to take a holiday or not work weekends!

We push to work remotely and think it's great for work life balances. All those posts 'because we are adults and as long as we get the work done why should we be told when to work' are correct. Your job doesn't need to be in the office or work specific hours. So why pay UK wages when we can get some one cheaper to do it somewhere else. Then there isn't a job, never mind a job with work life balance. Then tax those in employment or creating employment to support a welfare state that is unsustainable in its current format but no political will to change it. Reducing disposable income so the service sector shrinks. AI and remote working and out sourcing are doing to the educated professions what cheap coal imports did to the the mining communities, cheap labour abroad did to the textile industries and automation to manufacturing in the UK. For some communities job opportunities have been dire for decades.

I see a poster above saying that we have had luck of birth being born in the UK and Ireland. That is just so wrong, its shocking.

What luck exactly? I grew up in total poverty in the republic of Ireland, me and my mother were in and out of homeless accomodation. Many people were struggling for money. I remember Ireland as being full of rich people and poor people at the same time. The rich families stayed rich because they could afford to give their children good education. There was a private school near me that all the rich kids went to.

The poor families struggled as not only were they poor, they were looked down on by the rich people.

I now live in England and my life has also been a struggle here.I see lots of homeless people in my city here.

Ive visited Poland and everyone that I met in Poland was paid well, had a lovely house, lots of land. I haven't met everyone in Poland of course, but the idea that we are doing better than them is ridiculous

It’s funny that the thread I read previously to this was about parents finding a job for their graduate son through their connections. Just goes to show we are not all on the same playing field.

A lot of people find jobs through connections. Most people we hire are introduced to us via someone else.

This morning I have had another rejection for a job I interviewed for last week. I was qualified for the role, I had good experience in the sector and I thought the interview had gone really well but there you go. My confidence is rock bottom.

The market is awful. I am at risk of redundancy at work and will most likely be loosing my job and have been looking for something, anything to move to. There is so many people underemployed in the uk looking for something new alongside the unemployed that I think the figures are not showing the true reflection of what’s going on.

I feel for everyone going through the job hunt at the moment. But unfortunately I can’t see an end in sight to this. Brexit, Covid and now AI is going to cause even more disruption.

It’s funny that the thread I read previously to this was about parents finding a job for their graduate son through their connections. Just goes to show we are not all on the same playing field.

Luck of birth? Privilege being born in UK and Ireland? Speak for yourself.

I (now 42) grew up in the republic of Ireland in total poverty. my father left us and didnt pay maintenance and my life was constantly hard and poor..at one point i lived in emergency accommodation.

Ireland is full of poverty and homeless people, Ireland also has many rich people. The rich people dont really see what the poor people go through

I remember when I lived in Ireland, we were constantly told by social media that 'Polish people' were poor.

Later in life I went to visit some friends in Poland. I marvelled at how big their houses were. They all lived in mansions on huge patches of land, they all had good jobs. Like many countries, Poland has rich and poor people.

All these ads with Gen Zs swanning around in exotic locations with the latest mobile phones need scrapping.

Neither me or my small local accountants firm can get decent hires for financial/accounts jobs. Its "too boring " or not paid like the Big 4, despite being excellent roles in regional areas.
I agree lots of business development, project management, coding have been hit hard and can't see it getting better. And the new min wage has had a massive impact on youth hiring.
But there is always roles out there, not glamorous, the highest paid, but steady in office work for decent wages.

The NHS will disappear. People living in "poor" areas will have to set up their community police forces.