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!

My Polish cleaner lives in Poland.
Her ex (but not divorced) still lives in England (with another woman)
So my cleaner still gets the following:

'You might also get it if you receive one of the following benefits:

Contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
Incapacity Benefit
Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance
State Pension
Bereavement Allowance (Widow’s Pension)
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit

If you and your partner live in different countries you may qualify for Child Benefit or its equivalent in both. The country the child lives in will usually pay the benefit. If the benefit is more in the other country, that country will pay you extra'

She also has British residency giving her full access to the NHS and everything else, she is not breaking the law at all. She is allowed to use it.

@Swayingpalmtrees you are mistaken. You have to have been living in the country in past 12 months to get NHS treatment for free.

It needs a complete rethink in terms of how many we train and way training funded. Lots of capable teens fail to get places on vet med/medicine/dentistry.
I spent 18 nights in a London hospital a few years ago and virtually all nursing staff were Irish or EU.
Even in areas like law there are hard to fill vacancies - majority of criminal duty solicitors are over 50, lots of areas have no duty Solicitors under 35. But it’s poorly paid and anti social hours and not family friendly.

My husband is happy to work for minimum wage - his last job was at minimum wage (he was made redundant when the place closed down). We have no children or commitments limiting his hours. Is he fit and healthy - well, like the average middle-aged person, of course he is not as fit as a 20 year old, and he has a few health-issues not uncommon in middle-age, but he is very active and slim, for what that's worth.

My point is that employers shouldn't assume a 61 year old will want to be paid £££ for working a few convenient hours. They are not even giving him a chance with an interview - it seems he is just being written off. He has a driving licence, DBS check, experience - we tried taking his DOB off his CV but unfortunately his age is still more-or-less obvious due to the date and type of qualifications he has.

She has a British residency fuzz and you clearly do not have this but many millions of Europeans do.

Perhaps employers should be more open-minded about employing older people

This is definitely the case. There was an article in the Times a few weekends ago about all the 50 somethings leaving the employed workforce. Some want to because what was a "side hussle" is now a main hussle and they earn enough from it. But some struggle to find work because of ageism. It is a massive waste of talent and tax-paying potential.

No, she lives in Poland and comes back to the UK sometimes.
And it is perfectly legal for her to do so.
As per the agreement between the EU and UK - she gets all of her benefits as before paid into her account. She does come back sometimes. She may even move back here one day, she is still thinking about it. She loves and misses England.

Berate all the healthy people who could work but don't . We took a guy on at work , 34 , healthy who just never turned up . Turns out the lazy f@cker preferred being on benefits than work , and no this wasn't a min wage job .

Surely in reality it's a combination of many factors coming together to produce a shit storm that could have been prevented:

• The introduction of WTC so the British Tax payer is funding business and wages rather than businesses being expected to pay a proper wage
• The 'loophole' of benefits where people work out the minimum they have to work before they are worse off working than on benefits (yes this is a thing, I worked at CAB and saw it first hand)
• People being encouraged to get a degree, get into loads of debt. I expect all these degree educated people now think that mwj are below them.
• House prices - many young people cannot even contemplate buying a home or renting so are forced to stay at home. They then don't need as much money, don't have the ambition to save for a deposit because it seems so impossible. Mum and Dad subsidising them so not going for a better/more stressful job/working part time
• People seeing how, despite them working all their lives and working hard, they were forgotten about during the pandemic.
• Seeing BJ's mates getting ££££ contracts and being crap at their jobs.
• Brexit - a supply of, often, skilled workers who were prepared to live many to house for low wages. They could claim benefits eg. child benefit and send it all home where it was worth £££. We now don't want them and their countries are thriving in the EU so they've gone back to enjoy their home countries.
• People not accepting being treated like shit in service industries for low wages. The benefit/work difference not being enough to justify the cost of working.
• The cost of working - running a car, price of fuel, price of uniform.
• The frankly appalling way businesses treat employees. I'm in my 50's, I cannot believe how awful some employers are.
• People not valuing and respecting jobs such as cleaners
• The removal of benefits of working bank holidays etc, getting 'overtime' in many industries
• Young people simply not coping with jobs either through poor mental or physical health
• A general culture in the UK of 'why should I' when everyone else seems to be getting 'handouts'
• People not wanting to go the extra mile, put in the extra because they see the Royal Family and the Government carrying on in the way they do.

Don't you need an local address to register with a GP or dentist?

You say she stays at yours when doing this. Is she using your address?

Do stop Iam what she is doing is perfectly legal, and that is the whole point. I am not going to begrudge her an operation she could never afford in her own country. She has also worked in the UK for 11 years before and paid tax, so she isn't a free loader.

My point exactly hattie He probably had no intention of turning up, it will be to keep the job centre quiet for another few weeks.

But it's not. She's not a resident.

It is reaching and in some places beyond crisis point and many of these areas have been calling for help for years and being ignored.

It won't help much in the short term, but something that always comes to mind is the issues in career education. I've talked to headteachers about this and as others said, getting TAs and pastoral care roles has become next to impossible pretty much everywhere, teachers in many places as well; however, when discussing their career education, the main thing I always hear is how important teaching aspirational careers are and raising kids aspirations for future work.

I'm not against that, but I think there is an issue with the ideas around what is aspirational - yeah, for a lot of them, influencer seems a lot more aspirational than TA. I think there needs to be a shift to more looking at local, regional, and national skills needed as well as looking into the reality of many of having several careers throughout a lifetime. We're still largely teaching a one career track model that's out of date to many and helping few.

There is also the issue that many of the jobs people want more of are looked down on as 'unskilled'. No, you can't throw anyone into hotel work or waitressing, those do take skills and training. Many jobs have moved away from that training (or worse, taken advantage of apprenticeship schemes to pay less while doing very little training, making those companies who are putting in good work into training lives that much harder).

If people want more than the very basics in life, then they need to earn more than a very basic wage.

And this is why people are leaving a lot of areas - places that are making record breaking profits that could pay their employees more, but don't and now getting bit by it - as are the people trying to rely on it.

The idea that our minimum isn't living is ideological. There is no 'should' to it and yes, there are people raising families on minimum wage. There are people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, who've spent their lives on minimum wage or barely bobbing above it -- but many of them are leaving for better paid work and/or better conditions and no, students and single people aren't filling in those gaps.

I mean, carers are often on the 'very basic wage', but do you really want students and youngsters to be the bulk of that work force? Do you think as we go through the bulge and into the smaller generation that that is even possible? There needs to be a cultural shift of what's 'basic work', but how we do that alongside calls not to raise wages is a problem.

@Swayingpalmtrees, "Our nation" relies on unpaid work and the 'sound reasons' are a lot more common than some would think.

Like the shortage of carers which means we have a fuckton - between 8 and 12 million last I read, who are doing unpaid care, some for many hours longer than anyone would work. Some of those will be part of the number of unemployed and I'd find it hard to argue they are not supporting our nation. It would be great to have a solution for that, but it's mostly going to be an issue of getting through the population bulge.

Or the shortage of school places in some areas, particularly for children wit additional educational needs, which has meant some parents are having to educate their kids while they wait. Some can WFH around it, but it's hard to get a job in that situation.

Also - less sound, but a reality: what do you think should happen if none of those five 'suitable' employers want them? Do we make them take them? You can't get 'full employment' without dealing with both with employer biases and also that some people aren't very good employees. Even some by things within their control, but makes them pretty unemployable - I mean, would you hire someone who got caught fucking in a closet on company time? Cause I know a couple of people added to those unemployed stats for just that & I'm glad I didn't hire them. With the shortages, more like that are kept on, and it's not helping much.

noble pay attention, her ex is still living in their old house, which is registered with the drs etc, of course she would never use my address! She is allowed to see any dr anyway under the stipulation of agreement. She left five years ago to have her baby in Poland and stayed for eleven months and still go paid her benefits. This is not unusual. Perhaps you could do with educating yourself about it before commenting.

She then returned after eleven months and came back to work with us. It is quite normal trust me. Many Europeans come and go if they have the British residency papers in place.

But it's not. She's not a resident

She is technically and can claim like everyone else.

If you and your partner live in different countries you may qualify for Child Benefit or its equivalent in both. The country the child lives in will usually pay the benefit. If the benefit is more in the other country, that country will pay you extra

www.gov.uk/child-benefit-abroad

For anyone who is still struggling to understand and read my posts. Please check the government website.