Staff shortages are now a national crisis

[Confusedofbritain]

Staff shortages across many sectors is now a national crisis surely? I’ve given up expecting anything of this government, but why isn’t Labour beating them with a stick over this?

Some examples which affect me personally….

• Can’t go on holiday due to cancelled flight, cause by lack of ground staff.
• I work for NHS trust and we have closed a ward due to c 50% vacancies. We have plenty of money but can’t spend it. Now competing with other trusts paying increasingly high golden handshakes.
• Tried to book restaurant for Tuesday birthday. Not possible as all places shut Monday and Tuesday due to short staff (esp chefs).
• Poor service when we do go out. Staff look frazzled.
• Can’t get a builder to do an extension. Often not bothering to quote. Builder friend can’t keep labourers and brickies. Paying increasingly high wages but getting poached.
• Window fitter quoted me 2x higher than 2019 (for a much smaller window!) probably because they’re so busy and can’t increase capacity due to lack of staff. So prices have gone up by 100%.
• Long delay in discharge for father from hospital, due to long waits for care package (caused by staff shortages). He was in hospital a lot longer than necessary and declined hugely as result.

It’s largely caused by Brexit, partly people retiring or changing livelihood during Covid…:.but why wasn’t this anticipated and what are we doing about it?

I want to see posters EVERYWHERE encouraging people to consider NHS careers. It’s a rewarding career, but impossible to cope and keep going with so few staff. We are escalating to NHS England constantly, saying we need a national solution. It’s beyond critical, but I’m not confident that there is a national drive to sort this out.

The economic and social consequences of ignoring this massive structural issue will be disastrous!

Has everyone worked out its primarily Brexit yet? Not solely Brexit but its a massive part of it - its the thing that sets our inflation apart from everywhere else which is also facing a massive inflation problem. Its the icing on the cake that pushes people over the edge - our economy is doing far worse than others which are comparible.

That has been compounded by people deciding that its better to work from home or to take none shift work if they can, or they've given up working completely / gone part time / retired / were laid off and reskilled elsewhere due to the pandemic.

Wait until it hits teaching... Its a career that women were the main people staffing it as it fitted with child care hours. Now there are more options and teaching is shit for the stress/extra hours you need to do on top of those paid. Plus you've got all those retiring. I know our primary school is having a mass early retirement going on... it will be fine because its in a nice area so those staff coming through will take a job here. Its the schools in the less good areas that are going to be stuffed.

Oh yes, and those potential winter energy black outs that aren't really being talked about anywhere near enough yet. The only way we will avoid them is being everyone is sitting in the dark under blankets in December cos no one can afford to switch them on anyway...

Happy happy joy joy.

Also there has been a very good NHS pension scheme - so yes we are very lucky to have worked in the NHS on that score.

However in the past, the pension acted like a golden bond, keeping NHS staff in the system, often paid much less than counterparts doing sometimes much simpler work in the private sector.

Until the pension scheme was changed; and staff lost a lot of potential benefits and then found that there were, for some people, huge disincentives to staying in the NHS, in the shape of a large and complicated tax burden.

Having an NHS pension is still a very fortunate position to be in, don't get me wrong, but suddenly staff were struggling to stay longer in the system as full time employees; generally the most experienced, best qualified staff. For whom replacements have been impossible to recruit. it is quite sad.

Wait until it hits teaching...

It has already got teaching.

My larger house already costs more in council tax because its larger

I bought this house so that I would have three bedrooms and an office because I wfh. I cant have children. Im not to be penalised financially because im infertile? Wow!
Plus any scheme which encourages people to have more children given the climate crisis is highly stupid

@ForestFae I couldn't agree with this more!!!! in my old job, we had a senior management team, made up of men between 50 and 65 and expected work to be at the top of everyone's agenda. Whenever job vacancies came up we ended up with people not suitable as they were unwilling to be flexible with the suitable candidates as a point of principle! people don't want that anymore, employers need to step back and see the bigger picture now.

Honestly if employers of jobs that are mnimum wage and just over are struggling to find employees they probably need to look at themselves.

Ive worked several lower paid jobs over the years and found that in general their employees are treated like they should be robots and berated for the slightest mistake or deviation.

Now i work higher paid jobs i find managers are much more relaxed and flexible

There seems to be a perception that low wage = stupid workforce who need to be treated like small children

I had an accident and damaged my foot badly. My only 'reasonable adjustment' requested was special shoes which look more like trainers to stop me being in agony. I was refused because 'other staff might start wearing trainers'
None customer facing office job. Literally zero impact on profits and productivity even if other staff did wear trainers. But i was even told that if the pain was that bad i should just claim disability.

I didnt i found a better employer, i then retrained and am now in a more specialist higher paid job. When i changed jobs recently and started explaining my shoes to my new boss he was literally 'why are you telling me this, i dont care what you wear on your feet so long as you do your job'

If some minimum wage employers arent even willing to allow employees to wear shoes that look like trainers then imagine how bad they are with wheelchairs etc etc

I also worked somewhere were a man with autism was managed out of the business. He was good at his job but not very social and his face didnt fit.

Brexit.

Lots of local workers who worked on farms, in care etc came from the EU. They left after the Brexit vote.

Not the Brexit voting oldies are moaning no care home staff for their needs..... oh dear.

@Femalewoman yep. But also a lot of European workers can now do their job in the own country for better pay and conditions, better social conditions and crucially - be with their families. Why wouldn’t they want to leave the uk, far from their families, allowed to go home on holiday once a year for two or three weeks, living in poor standard rented accommodation with high living costs and alienated by others. It’s something that was always going to happen, Brexit just accelerated it not a sole cause of it.

Have you take a lot at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam lately? Not in the UK and no Brexit, but it's a shitshow.

The in the U.S.A same thing. They just had what is called "The Great Resignation". Resturants there are having to close for days too because they can't get the staff.

The problem is business selling more services than they can deliver on. Services are shitty all around and normally business would pay the price by going out of business. Now businesses that have no business still being in business are hogging all the staff.

I cannot get a builder. Been trying for 18 months. They will come out and quote but unless its a big profitable job they are not interested.

But I think low salaries have a lot to do with it. DH and I have good, difficult, stressful jobs. DH has had years of 0 and 0.5% pay rises, I think for the last 10 years now, so he now earns quite a bit less than he used to in real terms.

So thats less money to pay the builder to do a good job, when the builder's costs have gone up along with the price of materials.

Ditto people in middling well paid jobs that are quite hard and stressful and require commuting to do. If their salaries don't go up in line with inflation, what exactly are they working for? They might as well work a few part time hours nearer to home. If a higher rate taxpayer gets a pay rise, the actual difference in their pocket once nearly 50% is taken off in tax and national insurance is negligible. Theres not a lot of motivation now to work harder.

I think if the government introduced a tax rule (such as in Switzerland and The Netherlands) where you can deduct nearly all of your commuting to work expenses from your income tax (or your employer does it at source based on a formula for where you live), then that would make a huge difference to peoples' prosperity and make work more attractive. The costs and time of actually getting to work in this country are horrendous.

The vets thing is interesting. It was only a couple of years ago, that a new local vet school almost didn't get the go ahead, because the RVC said there were too many vets for the jobs available, and they didn't want there to be too much competition for jobs, driving down wages. See also the BMA who did the same with medical training places a few years ago.

I live rurally, and a lovely local cafe, the only facility within walking distance of our house (next nearest is 5 miles away), closed on Monday because they can't get staff and the owners are exhausted (it's very popular and busy). The owners will still own the building which is also run as a youth hostel so hopefully one day when this staffing crisis, and driving license/test crisis is sorted out the cafe will be reopened.

RedToothBrush

Wait until it hits teaching...

Where have you been?
There has been a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching for years.

Back in early 70's I kept swapping jobs for more money my salary went up 50% in two years. It was a mad time

Most of those on unemployment still are those that are disabled but thrown off disability benefits, those with caring responsibilities where a zero hours contract job or shift work wont cut it and those somewhere in the middle who are not and never will be disabled enough for benefits but not clever enough to hold down a job. And as someone else pointed out going from long term benefits to employment means a long gap between last benefit payment to first wage. What do you eat, how do you get to work, what clothes do you wear (as long term unemployed dont generally go about in office type clothing) for up to 6 weeks?

Jordan Peterson said in some class that was recorded and put up on YouTube,
The average IQ is 86, that means 50% of the population are at that or above, and capable of living unassisted, holding down a job etc.
What do you do with those below the average ? They too make up 50% of the population. Even the armed forces wont take them. Some are perfectly capable of independent living, holding down a job, but many are not.
Here in the UK, they get unemployment benefits.

@AchatAVendre
I cannot get a builder. Been trying for 18 months. They will come out and quote but unless its a big profitable job they are not interested.

We are in the same situation, we live rurally and the builders are so busy that they are only taking on work close to home as it's more convienient (and who can blame them).

I agree - DD was in min wage, place closed, she was working the next day at £11 per hour, she’s been there a month, she was poached for another position, at the interview now, offering £13 per hour, free parking and shop discount.

She only works Saturday’s.

It’s out there, people need to swap jobs while they have the chance.

I tried to book a youth hostel recently, and most of them aren't even fully open. I assume due to staff shortages but also due to covid, they will need to be inspected for all their safety certificates etc again which have probably been allowed to lapse.

On the subject of teacher shortages, I know a couple who have left teaching to work as delivery drivers or work for themselves - many have become tutors and make more money than when in the classroom!

I am now part time as the demands of full time were too much and I won’t be going full time again unless I really, really have to. At my school a number of teachers are part time (young, old, male and female) and this must have an impact on shortages.

My DP is highly skilled in his area and is paid a very good salary. He sees other jobs which he could go for as they require his skills set but they aren’t prepared to pay his salary. He knows he is a rare creature in his industry but British companies won’t pay the salaries. It’s quite interesting as he knows that some vacancies have existed for months but can’t be filled. Companies are losing out by not paying the wages.

Ah the Swiss model,

8.7 million people to our 67million.

Where 12% of worker are low paid, more than half of these workers being immigrants and as always affecting women more.

The main low-paid sectors were personal services – which includes hairdressing and cleaning firms – the retail sector, the food and restaurant industry, and hotels and accommodation.

So what you want is higher pay for those already weathly and those on the bottom rung to be trampled on more. As a person up thread said, tell me you are a Tory without telling me you are a Tory

@Swayingpalmtrees Are you sure you are not just worried there will be no one to deliver your shit if restrictions were to come back in?

OP I agree with you that it should be treated as a national crisis. With national actions to try and reduce the impact. In some sectors of the economy that is probably easier to do than others (for example, reducing the number of flights allowed or having shorter shop hours).

However, to expect the current government to do the sensible thing, no chance.

Many people on this thread seem to blame the cost of childcare as a reason not to work and claim benefits.
So what is the solution? Brexiteers have decided that we must turn into a high wage economy so cost of childcare will only go up as childcare = labor = wage.
For example post Brexit it has become virtually impossible to hire an aupair which NHS staff working unsocial hours were heavily relying on.

To go back to unemployment, instead of blaming the cost of childcare where frankly I don’t see what the solution is given rising wages, we should go back to the root of the problem. At some point people should be made somehow responsible for their life choices and stop producing children when in precarious situations. Judging from all the threads on mumsnet too many people make poor life choices because they expect the state to pick up the pieces.

Another issue is all these Mickey Mouse university degrees which have emerged because “everyone deserves to go to university”. This is a major issue and partly explains why there are massive staff shortages in some key industries (building & construction, welding, hair dressers etc). Many youth would be much better off learning proper skills rather than embarking on these proxy degrees and ending up unemployed as there are not jobs good enough for them. This is such a waste of precious resources.

@Swayingpalmtrees Farming fruit picking requires people to live away from home in a lot of cases. You CANNOT do that if you live in social housing because you will lose your tenancy. And i would bet a penny to a pinch of shit that if you saw a SH flat empty you would be the first to report it so another reason SH tenants couldnt risk it is because of busybodies.
I live in a social housing flat. In the last two months the HA has wanted access to this flat five times for different reasons surveys checks etc. The tenant has to let them in for things like gas safety checks which are mandatory. My HA flatly refuses to do them outside office hours.

I bet despite the way you speak about those who you consider to be beneath you , you still expected them to wear a mask to protect you though. I bet it was "we are all in this together" then. Im pretty confident that this is true going by your comments on the monkeypox thread.

I am anti masks so not sure where you got that from! How odd. Just get a job and then you can move into the private sector and rent somewhere that is not invaded by the HA every five minutes mmm