What is going on with the job market at the moment!

[scotchbonnetface]

100s of people applying for the same job. The salaries are abysmal and unless you have years of experience, you’ve got no chance of even being selected for interview.

There seems to be no middle ground of roles either. It’s either care work on minimum wage or senior such and such at £75k with minimum 5 years experience.

Luckily I have a job at the moment, but it’s a rocky industry and redundancy may be looming. In my 40s, I’m not sure I have it in me to retrain!

Even if I did have the energy, what sort of roles are even out there anymore?

Just needed a moan really

It’s so hard. I’ve been looking and it’s either minimum wage or jobs that require significant experience for very little pay.

It seems the way to find a job is to go through a recruiter

A lot of businesses really aren't making vast profits for their CEOs to spend on yachts, most are trying to cope with a pretty small profit margin that's already being threatened by rising taxes, energy costs and employment bills. And that's before all of Trump's tariff fun, and geopolitical uncertainty. We think of all business owners as like Bezos or Zuckerberg, but most are more like the high street accountancy firm or chartered surveyor. And they just don't have the wiggle room, or much ability to raise prices to cover costs as people are already struggling to afford their services.

It's a bit crap everywhere really, but the only possible hope we have is creating economic growth, so getting companies to make more money. Taxing businesses so they fail, or can't even get off the ground, can only achieve the exact opposite of that as not only does it mean fewer companies, which means fewer employed people, which means lower wages as more people are fighting for the same limited jobs. Which means fewer customers for any remaining companies as people won't be able to afford to buy stuff, which means fewer companies. Etc, etc. What you ideally want is loads of companies offering great packages to compete for employees, who then have loads of disposable income which they can use to support more companies. And loads of companies paying a little tax (and instead spending the majority of their profits on staff, and r&d to increase productivity - and therefore profit) is much, much better than a handful of miserable, unproductive companies giving all of their profits to the taxman. Whilst researching how to emigrate.

I think there are fewer jobs around than there have been, but the difficulties of the whole job hunting experience is exacerbated by the fact that recruitment is utterly broken right now. Candidates applying for everything regardless of suitability, employers relying on spurious sifting processes to get the numbers down, fake jobs on Indeed etc, fake people applying, ghosting on both sides. Both employers and candidates are finding it much harder to find each other.

It’s the beginning of the impact of AI too. Jobs like advertising, law… anything requiring content to be generated or loads of documents to be checked used to take dozens of humans and now takes one to check the AI’s work…

I think this is just sheer lazyness and greed on the part of many companies. Unwilling to train people up. So unfair on young people in particular.

Thank you. I’m agency and know how hard things are; some of our clients are struggling too and January-April were pretty ropey. We’re picking up a lot now though.

I also think a lot of companies use AI to screen applicants now, and we haven’t caught up with how to - not game the system - but basically how to write CVs in an attempt to not be screened out.

I interviewed at a few places around this time last year.

It was clear a couple were keen but baulked when I told them my current salary. I think they thought I was inflating it when I wasn't.

The demand is there but the commensurate pay is just not.

I luckily got an offer in excess of my salary in a new industry. It was a risk for both the company and me but it has paid off and I am absolutely loving it. They too are very happy with my crossover.

The places I interviewed at but didn't get an offer are still advertising for the same positions en masse. They clearly need bums on seats but only if the pay is low. They said "we are going with another candidate" yet readvertised the job on Indeed a week later.

I would get 10 offers tomorrow if I dropped my wage demands say 20% or 30% but that's not happening.

Same experience here. 20 years marketing experience, got made redundant from an international role in Nov. Have applied for dozens of roles, only had a few interviews which went no where. I've never struggled before like this, getting very twitchy as savings dry up.

I didn't realise that, I'm on probation in my new job, my 6 months is due to end early Aug. I once was in a job where a colleague took the mick with his sick leave, the company paid full sick pay for 6 months so he went off with "stress" and as soon as the 6 months started to run out, he'd come back on a phased return and after a couple of weeks off he went again! And he'd take on loads of client work in those weeks that we'd have to pick up everytime on top of our own and this went on for over 4 years and was still going on when.i moved on to a new job! So I totally get that businesses need to be able to get rid of people who just can't do the job or take the Mick all the time.

I've found recruitment agencies have changed though, usually my CV gets a lot of interest from recruiters but last year getting any help from them was hard whilst out of work. Also I used to find that when I finally started a job I'd still get calls from agencies for months afterwards and this time round I've had one call since being in my new role.

I had one agency ring me and describe a job to me that sounded mostly suited to my experience but she would never actually send me a job description and said they didn't do that, it took the company 6 weeks or so to finally give me an interview date and by then I had no memory of what the job entailed, the bloke was unpleasant, his colleague didn't even bother to turn up to the teams interview and he berated me for any experience I didn't have - and you just think, why have both you and the agency wasted my time, you've read my C.V and decided to interview me! I'm honest on my C.V about what expertise I've got so don't put me forward for the job or interview me if you think I've not got the right experience!

I'm a minimum wage type worker. Was looking for a 2nd job part time. Applied for some home care roles. Heard nothing back at all. Thought they'd be crying out for those kind of jobs.

I've been looking for a new job for a while, fairly senior, fairly niche. I interviewed a couple of weeks ago for a position, two whole days of interviews plus a remote leadership task and technical task remotely (another half a day of my time), I haven't heard a word since, which I think is really rude.

I've got another whole day lined up for a different job (again niche so a small pool), 454 applications and they are interviewing four people.

A decade ago I could have picked up the phone and I bet I would have been able to sort out a new job within a couple of months.

I know a sector recruiter who says she has never seen the market like it in 30 years.

I had a bizarre experience with a kitchen company that advertises on TV. I was interviewed four times over a few months last year for four different health & safety roles between two different factories and I was ghosted without feedback after every interview. Now I will say that it was always weird because most of the people interviewing me were young women in their very early 20's and as a woman in my 40's, it felt like I wasn't allowed in their gang. I was interviewed on one occasion by a young woman and a guy who was actually older than me and he made it clear that I was ideal for the job and was seeking her approval and she kind of slapped him down on it. And the thing is every one of those jobs has been advertised at least 4 times since. I'm far better off in the job I'm in now as I think that place would have been hell to work for anyway, high staff turnover and health & safety staff that haven't long since left school! One of my interviewers was on LinkedIn and she'd only left school about 3 years before and been H&S just a year! You knowledge and experience to keep a company safe and compliant!

I spoke to a recruiter I know last winter and he said it was the worst he'd seen it in 20 years of him being in his job!!

Garbage, you just want to stay greedy.

Years ago I went for a job I really wanted as an assistant in an industry I was really keen to get into and would have been good at. The woman who ran the company took me out for coffee, spent an hour monologuing about her marriage issues and then ghosted me. I heard from a friend that she 'didn't think I was right for the job'. How could she know? She was probably embarrassed at having off-loaded onto a young total stranger.

God it’s people like you I have to avoid 🤣 meanwhile I’ll just whizz round in my Porsche and enjoy my massive mansion from bleeding all my staff dry.

I’ve had one of these interviews too. An incredibly arrogant woman who was well known in the field interviewed me at a coffee shop and proceeded to tell me all about her posh kids and what elite universities they attended and their holidays around the med on the yacht. The last 5 minutes she vaguely asked me about my experience and the wrapped it up. I heard a month later I wasn’t successful but neither would I have wanted the bloody job with her as a boss.

100 percent - the job market is massively impacted at the moment. 100s of applications per position

I can’t believe the posters who think that employers aren’t employing people because they are greedy.
When are we finally going to get over the narrative that growth, employment and wealth creation are bad things?
If you want to boost employment, make it EASY to employ staff.
Sadly this government has done the opposite of that. Guess what’s happened?
It’s not bloody rocket science…

Agree with this : I’ve just landed a perm role after TWO YEARS of interviewing (done mat covers while looking)

I have an ‘amazing cv’ (oxbridge/only high profile former employers for long stints & what employers acknowledge as ‘perfect experience’): it’s the market & being 40 plus

Friends are taking pay cuts (marketing jobs in London & SE)

I’m looking for an admin role, was originally Senior Admin but I’ve not worked for the last 5 years due to ill health, coupled with being early 50’s means that in this current climate I’m feeling really despondent.

If I receive one more call or email from employers/recruitment agencies asking me to send an up to date copy of my CV as the one they have ended in 2019, even though I include a cover letter explaining that I haven’t worked since then, I will scream!

Anyway, sympathies to everyone that’s in the same boat.

Yes the probation thing will massively impact this. I didn’t know it had changed already.

Unfortunately yes and for us we need to know someone is genuinely talented and not just stolen an entire portfolio from a previous role or Pinterest and is blagging it. I simply can’t risk employing now.

This government are simply idiots, reduce NI, lower taxes fair and simple rules to protect employees and every SME would be booming. But no we have all just about had enough and they make out we are the enemy.

It’s politics of envy. Nobody wants to hear about me at 28 with a newborn working until the small hours to build a business, nit interested in how the business came about and any financial and personal sacrifices the owner made.

They just think these businesses plonked into our laps like we are the chosen ones ready to splash out the massive salary’s to everyone just for showing up and take zero profits for ourselves.