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

I was one of a small minority refused VES. I wouldn’t need another job, but I don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. Obviously shedding younger and / or less productive colleagues in their 40s and 50s saved more money. When I was told I had been refused, my manager asked what I would live on? I had done too good a job of hiding my age, because the answer was my occupational pension.

Nurses have to pass an English test in order to work in the NHS. Newly qualified nurses are also facing a recruitment crisis. Loads from last year Still haven't found jobs.

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.

Same reply as when it was posted above-

did You read it?
“The Home Office scheme allows registered employers to recruit workers from overseas who meet a certain skill level. The rules were tightened in July 2025 to restrict the scheme mostly to graduate-level employees who would be earning at least £41,700”
“More than 100 of those businesses were added to the skilled worker sponsorship list after the rules were tightened. Being on the register does not mean applications for individual visas would be approved.”

As i said you end up going via 'mutual agreement'. I know it has been done from one company within 18 months letting hundreds of original staff go at a time. Why dont you think it would be possible to do this for hundreds of people?

You clearly don't know anyone who works in Local Government. We have been losing people to 'restructurings' for many years now. Every couple of years another round of ' restructuring' comes along. So I know a great many people made redundant. Latest was a colleague in her 30s. Whole teams have gone this way, as well as colleagues within teams.

I mentioned both the prison and probation services there are many many roles available both inside and outside the gate. Everything from psychotherapeutic intervention delivery, to unpaid work supervisor, court officer, housing officer , administration roles, corporate services, contract management, HR, procurement, project management etc if people are genuinely looking for work there are many opportunities available. Dismissing them all due to the difficulties of prison officers who are not even all employed by HMPPS by the way, is short sighted

Until 2010 the state pension age for women was 60, now it is 66/67 and will then rise to 68. That rise will impact those staying in work although there is not a clear alignment with retirement age, raising the pension age is definitely a nudge.While people may last a year or two on just their occupational pension, most people need their state pension too. I would rather pay those age 65 plus with 40 years NI their state pension slightly early, than pay unemployment benefits to a new graduate to sit in their bedroom fruitlessly applying for jobs and becoming depressed.

The piece on the radio was specifically about prison officers. A newish prison only half capacity due to staffing issues. No one wants to work in them, and for good reason.

You clearly don't understand the wide variety of roles within the justice sector. Lots of us do

Until 2010 the state pension age for women was 60, now it is 66/67 and will then rise to 68. That rise will impact those staying in work although there is not a clear alignment with retirement age, raising the pension age is definitely a nudge.While people may last a year or two on just their occupational pension, most people need their state pension too. I would rather pay those age 65 plus with 40 years NI their state pension slightly early, than pay unemployment benefits to a new graduate to sit in their bedroom fruitlessly applying for jobs and becoming depressed.

Yes, I heard about this on the radio. And how the staff are worried about how they wont go home. A female prison officer was interviewed, and said she is covered in scars from attacks from inmates.
No thanks.

Yes, it’s true that different types of workers are affected now. All very well when it’s ‘just’ blue collar workers in the north that are impacted, but now it’s predominantly middle class white collar workers, there’s outcry.

I’m not sure that was the case in the post 2008 recession though, I think it impacted everyone. People are now just more aware of other people looking for work due to social media (and threads like this!).

Lots of vacancies in prisons and probation if people need jobs , seriously under resourced and can't recruit the people they need

Not Social Media. It's because of the jobs that are going. There were plenty of jobs in the South East when we peaked UK unemployment rate at 11.9 perc in 1984. Just not for a third of the Country with their absolute skill base. I left a fee paying school for university in 1985. Even though I lived in a mining area of Yorkshire with unemployment around 20 percent, I always thought that there would be jobs for me. Get educated, supportive family with contacts, good old school network and you'd get a career. And guess what, there was and I did get a career. But if you left the local comprehensive looking to go into the traditional industries of Yorkshire then you were going to be one of the 11.9 to 20 percent. Also if you worked in them you were going to be made redundent at 50 or 40 with no other work. That's the evolving situation now for the traditional education route into employment.
It will be interesting to see how resiliant the educated middle class actually are.

I would advise your friend to be extremely cautious. Im a CS and some ex-colleagues of mine that took voluntary exit over 12months ago still havent found a new role yet on a similar assumption. Make sure they are absolutely certain there are roles out there (not just assuming), because my colleagues are regretting taking the package now.

The actual stats show redundancies are not at a high level compared to recent years. But lets not let the facts get in the way of anecdotes Redundancies - Office for National Statistics

They don’t. A company can only sponser a visa (at great expense to them) for qualifying roles that pay more than £41k. No chicken shop or vape shop pays that.

Not where I work. The last 6 redundancy waves (all in the last 10 years) were all about the same size, the same for everyone else I know (all big consumer goods companies). It’s brutal every time, but utterly predictable - we just came out of one, the next one should be autumn 2027/spring 2028.

Same with pretty much all.the professions on the visa list - hotel management, engineering, working in corner shops and vape shops.

We can't possibly need migrants when we have a huge pool of people who can't find work