AIBU to think redundancy crisis is not getting enough media coverage?

Let me rephrase. Show me the stats that says there is no redundancy crisis.

Can you show the stats you have that show there are no redundancies?

Can you share the stats you have that show there are so many redundancies?

Asda are currently going through an employee restructure, many people are being made redundant. They want everyone trained across the whole store so a lot of those who will lose their jobs are older employees and those with physical disabilities.

Redundancy, can be for legit business reasons, liquidation, cost cutting, but replacement of people by AI is huge, whether it works or not and will hit overseas outsourcing too, so less demand. Redundancy is also in need of significantly improving and I'm shocked no government has upped the statutory payouts and terms. It is also the easy option for getting rid if staff, avoiding legalities. As role gone, person gone! Jobs are disappearing very fast. Hidden unemployment is vast too, so we're yet to see how big the figures really are, as stats are there to reinforce government PR, never to tell a true tale.

It's different this time. It's impacting middle class professionals and their university educated children, so it's a 'crisis'. I was brought up in a Yorkshire mining area and you are right, nobody gave can shit about whole communities devastated by unemployment. Not just miners but all the sectors that relied on their wages, same with steel, same with textiles. But we were told it was an inevitable restructuring and modernisation and 'get on your bike and go and find work'
This is no different, just impacting different people. I'm empathetic by nature and do have some empathy for the current plite of AI takeover of jobs, but there was little empathy from the educated middle class when it wasn't them, as per usual, tbh.

Thanks to everyone that responded. It’s sickening to read frankly. How do we get our voices heard, I really just can’t let this lie. Also the reference to employment / unemployment figures being inaccurate, I also often think they are being fiddled somehow, same with inflation. What can we do! Protest? Petition? Nothing seems enough but have to start somewhere!!

Genuinely, I don't understand why you say this. In the last 26 years, we have had a Conservative government since 2010. Why do you blame Labour, they have barely had a chance to do anything in 2 years. 24 years of extreme mismanagement has got us here. Labour may well be re-arranging the deck chairs. But look at the poor leadership we have had.

David Cameron (Conservative majority, 2015–2016)
Theresa May (2016–2019)
Boris Johnson (2019–2022)
Liz Truss (2022)
Rishi Sunak (2022–2024)

Whilst I have sympathy for the civil servants facing redundancy, it is a relief to think that this swollen mass that is consuming so much of the public budget is being slimmed down.

To think there is not anywhere near enough media coverage about the redundancies across the country? I spent a long time reading a chat on here a few days ago, which I can’t for the life of me find, with post after post of stories of recent redundancy and job searches, either personally or of spouse / child. The same on other popular forums, this seems to be affecting thousands and thousands of people yet I don’t see it being talked about anywhere near enough! I appreciate the bbc did a short bit recently on young people and the job market but this is different. This is a huge disaster - losing jobs at a stage of life when you’ve got multiple responsibilities with limited, if any, options to go into. What can we do to get this into media, perhaps there is someone on here who could help get it the coverage it needs? I’m terrified frankly.

@TheCurious0range The problem with the difficult to fill roles that seem to always be available for anyone that's willing to do them qualified or not, is they may well attract some of the most desperate unsuitable people that just need a job, any job - and you don't really want that in a care home or a prison or anywhere with vulnerable people.

The harm to the economy this Labour government did under Starmer/Reeves is only going to grow under unfunded Andy. Sick pay from day one and all the rest mean that dismissing under capability is a hugely long and expensive process. Smaller firms without a dedicated HR department will look at the Byzantine employment law around capability, the weeks and weeks of meetings and adjustments and more meetings and appeals they must hold to terminate a poor worker and of course they will opt for redundancies.

The only positive thing that can be said about this lot is that they are ensuring we will not suffer a Labour government for a generation.

It's very odd that people are experiencing such difficulty in finding jobs and those receiving applications are reporting vastly more than at times in the not too distant past. All while the unemployment stats remain largely unchanged. I do wonder whether rises in applications for disability benefits is part of it - some people are opting out all together because it's just too hard and they've lost hope they can make it work with the health issues they have, even if they might have done 20 or 30 years ago. But then what explains all these reports of so many applications per vacancy? I also wonder if there is a rise in freelancing so that some people report that they are in employment - better than having a gap on their CV. But they are earning very little and continuing to apply for jobs while technically being self-employed.

Because it's nowhere near how bad as it's going to be 😳 and because there are still people in work who believe that there are jobs out there, you just need to lower your expectations. There are also people still in work who believe when it comes to them losing their jobs, they will just get any job in Asda etc.

It hasn't hit people yet because it has affected them yet or their particular industry. When it affects all industries across the board, and you get 90,000 applicants for 5 care work positions then it will be taken seriously.

What I don't get is why we have a redundancy crisis but there are no huge programmes to retrain people in shortage careers like nursing. It's mind boggling we can have a redundancy crisis yet our hospitals are full of nursing staff who can barely speak basic English.

The harm to the economy this Labour government did under Starmer/Reeves is only going to grow under unfunded Andy. Sick pay from day one and all the rest mean that dismissing under capability is a hugely long and expensive process. Smaller firms without a dedicated HR department will look at the Byzantine employment law around capability, the weeks and weeks of meetings and adjustments and more meetings and appeals they must hold to terminate a poor worker and of course they will opt for redundancies.

The only positive thing that can be said about this lot is that they are ensuring we will not suffer a Labour government for a generation.

It is very industry specific.

I work in recruitment and the engineering sector I work in is crying out for more staff, there is a huge huge staff shortage.