Staff shortages - why?

[Buttalapasta]

I've just read the thread on pharmacist shortages. My mum's GP practice has cut its opening hours due to shortages and the local pub now closes at 9 for the same reason! Why? I know Brexit had some impact but surely not this much? Is it down to poor wages? Early retirement? It seems strange that so many places can't seem to get staff yet they aren't offering higher wages? Any economists know?

Really? Well the Leavers were right then. We were too dependent on a migration workforce.

Personally I think Covid has enabled people to reset ( worldwide) . It was a much needed break in the U.K. and no one wants to go back to work for the sake of work.

Firms don’t want to employ older people, my hours have been slashed this month and I have tried everywhere local to me to get another job. I have loads of experience in retail,hospitality, NHS admin and even biological warfare, don’t mention that when applying for a supermarket job, and can’t get even an interview

Someone mentioned the morale destroying fear of complaints. Yet you see it on here too, it’s encouraged at every turn. It’s not a discussion or query anymore, just go complain.

I hate to say it, but also the expectation of WFH. I fully agree that some jobs can be WFH, but many people want WFH sociable hours only. Double whammy.

The govt are targeting the wrong people by wanting to get over 50s back into work. If someone over 50 can afford to retire, isn't relying on the state and has perhaps downsized their lifestyle, then why the hell shouldn't they? You can't force them back to work!

Occupational pensions can be drawn from age 55; as a result of the pandemic and shifting attitudes about life style, a hell of a lot of people in this demographic retired earlier, moved to rural or coastal areas for quality of life. If people make life choices which they can fund themselves, without reliance on public funds then frankly the govt should butt out and let them get on with it!

I think the groups that need to be targeted are those who aren't working to capacity and relying on the state to fund that. Someone said earlier that UC (as opposed to tax credits) doesn't operate on the 16 hour working minimum rule, so there should be less incentive for people to deliberately keep their hours low. But it takes time for things to filter through; someone who's deliberately worked just 16 hours for years is hardly likely to suddenly spring into a full time role of more than double those hours! I think it's easy to forget that 16 hours is hardly anything really - just 2 days a week. It'd probably be a massive shock to someone who perhaps hasn't worked full time or anywhere close to that for years, to step up and work harder.

The answer really is simply that work has to pay! Unless you're absolutely driven by a particular career, or inspired by running your own business, then work is a means to an end: paying the bills and funding the lifestyle you want. And while for many people, working their guts out all week doesn't afford them a tangibly better lifestyle than their mate down the road who just works part time or doesn't even work at all- the problem of staff shortages will remain.

Personally I think Covid has enabled people to reset ( worldwide) . It was a much needed break in the U.K. and no one wants to go back to work for the sake of work.

Plenty of people didn’t get a break during Covid. What we’ve ended up with is a situation where a smaller number of people are slaving away covering the work of several people while an increasing number of people don’t work. That’s going to be the next set of social divisions / resentments in this country.

Really? Well the Leavers were right then. We were too dependent on a migration workforce.

why do you think we don't need them?

The govt are targeting the wrong people by wanting to get over 50s back into work. If someone over 50 can afford to retire, isn't relying on the state and has perhaps downsized their lifestyle, then why the hell shouldn't they? You can't force them back to work!

It's not as simple as that, what do you count as relying on the state?

Brexit. A lot of Europeans left the UK (not necessarily to return to their home country) and these were mostly from the younger half of the working population with disproportionate effects on the lower aid sectors (care) and the skilled without being a trade sectors (warehousing). Migrant labour by definition is more likely to move to where the work is. They're not inclined to have a "Born in Bolton, will die in Bolton" attitude that would prevent them moving half way across the country to take up an opportunity.

Online retail. Covid boosted online sales and home deliveries. The demand for delivery drivers sucked a lot of people out of other jobs. As most of these jobs involve vans or cars the opportunities were available to anyone with a standard driving licences.

Aging working population. The country is getting older. A drop in the birth rate means their are fewer younger people, and older people are living longer with more complex health and social care needs. Add in to this the long-term effects of Covid on health and delays in NHS treatment leading to a rise in the numbers of chronic conditions. Plus, the older we get the more established we get and the harder it is to move to take up a new job (unless it's highly paid).

Early retirement. Lots of people that could, did. Can't blame them.

Presenteeism. A lot of UK 'leaders' view productivity in terms of hours worked or at least present in the workplace. A culture of long hours and essential overtime isn't attractive to new workers or older workers. Sectors that have relied on overtime to function at even a basic level of service (e.g. railways) are suffering when people reduce their hours (or just wark the basic hours) to have a better work:life balance. Many sectors either don't pay enough without overtime, or don't employ enough to function without overtime.

High St retail. The continuing decline of the High St has seen a lot of redundancies. Retail staff are less likely to drive or be location flexible for new employment, and retail skills aren't always seen as valuable or transferrable (incorrectly in my view). So this is part of the rise in unemployed not working elsewhere.

Firms don’t want to employ older people

this is going to have to change, we simply don't have enough young people

Depends if you want to that prescription or have that operation doesn't it?

The uk simply does not have enough people with the skills we need or the people who want to be trained up.

Stopping immigration because you don't like immigrants, just makes you a racist... its obviously nothing to do with numbers either... we have invited in 5m HK Chinese and many of them are unskilled and old... so will just become a burden on services.

@safeplanet I'm not sure of your question?
Obviously we're all reliant on the state to some degree... NHS etc

My point was really differentiating between the over 50s who can afford to stop working or who can reduce to part time because they have paid into occupational or private pensions and can live without relying on UC, and younger age groups. I think the govt are onto a loser with the first group... you can't force people back into work if they can afford to fund their own desire to not work.

Employers now expect a ridiculous amount of flexibility, but refuse to be flexible.
My teenager doesn't work, as she just wanted a Saturday or Sunday job ( like everyone had when I was a teen), but no employer wants that. She used to work weekends in a restaurant, but they'd pressure her to work weekday evenings till late. So she quit, her friends seem to have the same issues.

Mostly we all agree. All these are reasons for staff shortages and a high (depending on point of view), level of economically inactive people.

Fixing one won't fix the others - but god knows where we start.

Because a lot more than that have come in since. Not many of them pharmacists, though.

Failure to plan for an ageing workforce. The baby boomers are all retiring now and there's not the volume of people coming up behind them.
In my 2 nearest pharmacies the pharmacists both retired during covid and they've struggled to replace them. It takes years to train a fully qualified pharmacist or GP.
We were reliant on well trained foreign staff coming to this country to work.. Many of us saw this as a good thing but some didn't!

Really? Well the Leavers were right then. We were too dependent on a migration workforce.

What they weren’t right about was that leaving the EU would solve the problem. One way or the other we need immigration, as we always have.

My DS is 20 and has and ASD so doesn't interview well. (Not chatty, no eye contact, looks shifty and wooden). They won't take him.
He volunteered for two years - did really well - but when the permanent position came up - one day a week - paid - he didn't answer the questions right or do the little "tests" they set him correctly so they rejected him. And why? Because someone will "audit" their interview so they have to "prove" that they took on the person who ticked the boxes best. And that will never be him.

i totally agree , I also work within healthcare ( community based) and after 39 years of caring for other people ( and post Covid) feel like I’m running on empty and I am retiring in a few weeks at 60 . Although technically this is early retirement when I started work 60 would have been my actual retirement age so I feel that now is ‘ the time ‘

What could be done to help?

• Proper subsidised childcare for a start. This would allow women who want to eprk to afford to do it.
• Government subsidies /penalties(?) to persuade employers to offr proper contracts instead of zero hours ones.
• fee waivers for nurses

I do think you have a point.
TA jobs the same. Schools have been asking TA’s to come in earlier and stay later and thus ruling out many of the benefits to those with kids.

As an aside I can see the advantage to a nurse having a 3 day week but isn’t a 12 hour shift just too long? It sounds terrible when you have to be top of your game all shift long.

One thing I dont understand about people in their 50s retiring is- how can they afford it? They dont qualify for pensions at that age so if you retired say, at 53, you'd then need 12 years of income to bridge the gap. Thats an awful lot of money, even IF you have paid off your mortgage. Considering heating and fuel has gone up massively along with other expenses and bills etc then you'd need quite a large lump sum to live comfortably (let alone holidays, trips out, meals out etc). I suppose I'm just amazed that if you factor an income of 20k a year (which is relatively low) , that works out to 240,000 just for 12 years.

We were reliant on well trained foreign staff coming to this country to work.. Many of us saw this as a good thing but some didn't!

Like everything it was both good and bad.

It was great to have those staff - and added so much to our society and workforce - but it completely removed the need for employers and the government to provide any training. We've seen it with nursing - it's now expensive and difficult to do the training. We've certainly seen it with major employers. The concept of recruiting the person "for the company" and training them has gone. Employers recruit for the current role.

I’d agree that it’s low wages quite often. I work poorly paid jobs because I can fit it in to school hours. Often it’s hard to get receipts for Childcare that’s in the format UC want. You’d think it would be simple name of child, date of attendance, registration number but no. Then it’s declined and because you’ve paid in advance you can’t then afford the next lot of fees.

Covid has had an effect for various reasons.
Lockdown made people re-evaluate their lives. I know numerous people who retired earlier than planned or changed jobs to work from home permanently.
Also ongoing health conditions. There are thousands of people with long covid and thousands who are vaccine-injured who have all had to give up work.

Brexit had a big effect.

HCP is much lower in real terms than 20 years ago, the nhs pension contributions have doubled for a pension that is no longer final salary and can’t be claimed until state retirement age. Tuition fees are for 4 or 5 years which need to be factored into the salary. The responsibilities have increased. The government have slashed community pharmacy funding to the degree that a significant amount will close, this impacts on working conditions (which weren’t great to start with- long days, no flexibility, no lunch break)