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

I'm an experienced PA/EA I've been getting people contact me about entry level jobs with salaries in the mid 20s. It's ridiculous you can't expect experienced people for entry level salaries.

My linkedin actually shows my many years of experience at high level so it's not like they can't see it.

However I know from work we aren't recruiting so it's pretty shit out there for jobs.

It’s nice to see you have a job, even though it must be frustrating working for Rachel.

Sadly they can expect experienced people for min wage in this market. They are relying on people's desperation.

Even if we are not technically in a recession right now, I have no doubt that people are spending less either due to joblessness/ shit wages and underemployment which font get picked up in the jobless figures/ fear of redundancy meaning reluctance to spend/ cost of living increases on top of all these factors.
Give it another year and it'll be a full blown recession. We are doomed!

The biggest problem is energy prices. It affects everything. Cost of living at home and rising costs for businesses. The root cause of the problem is the Ukraine war, and now added to that the Middle East war. If both of those can possibly sort themselves out then energy prices should fall and the economy will likely pick up again.

You are too bitter for your own good! For a start are you saying that people shouldn't work a living because it upsets you because you've invented issues with labour? I get paid! That's why I work, l get to have a nice house and travel a lot because I get paid to work! Do you sit on the dole then just to spite labour?
I didn't have a job for 4 months last after being made redundant with 126 colleagues, people refusing to take on people and citing the extra NI money are a problem to people being made redundant! Stop hating on people that work! We've all got to pay taxes or there's no money for anything in this country and people certainly wouldn't get benefit money not to work, it isn't about "working for Rachel" !

There also doesn’t seem anyone willing to give people a chance. I’ve done face to face customer service before starting with a work permit at 13!
got 18 years call centre experience, 7 of which is the industry I want to do face to face customer service in
I’m just getting rejected without even an interview as they seem to see call centre and say no
it’s the exact same job but just face to face

The big employers in my city are off shoring jobs to countries with lower labour costs at pace. WFH has really shot us in the foot in this respect. If a job can be done remotely it can be done anywhere in the world.
Worryingly AI is looking like a huge threat to our creative industries which is another huge concern.
Supermarkets too have cut back massively on staff.

I give a shit! Is the PLC in Manchester? I’m available for any training whatsoever at £70k pa!

The good ones are probably ones the stupid application screening process ignores! You sound like you are getting people who are just applying for jobs to keep the job centre happy!

I have a friend who runs a neighbourhood cafe and the increase in minimum wage and NIC have been a disaster for her. She can't put prices up as she'll lose custom so the increases have had to come out of her (already very small) salary. She's at the point now where she's ready to call it quits and close the whole thing down.

Of course there are greedy CEOs raking it in but most small businesses owners are not. Putting up employer national insurance contributions when the job market is this bad was a mistake (and I say this as a Labour voter).

After my posts this morning I just got a call offering me the job I interviewed for on Monday!

We don't use application screening, it's all manual! Someone applies, every cv gets looked at. No auto filtering unless they tick the "visa required" box

That's a good way to be! I know it must be laborious but I was disheartened by screening software that instantly rejected me even though I was a perfect match on paper or rejected me because they don't tell you a salary and make you enter a desired salary and if you get that figure wrong you're automatically rejected!

Salaries are shit though

Congratulations @summersun25 . That is wonderful news.

Still no news here.

I recruit in my current postition, all applications for jobs within my directorate from people with the right to work here who meet the minimum educational requirement benchmark are passed to me by HR. I review them all individually and score them, everyone then receives an email either inviting them for interview or advising that they are unsuccessful. Everyone that gives their time to attend an interview and is unsuccessful is offered the opportunity to arrange a phone call with me at a convenient time for feedback.

Asking HR to write a blanket email to 70 people who are not invited for interview is an easy, less than ten minute task with software.

I find the default 'you will not hear from us if your application is unsuccessful' approach dreadful.

My partner never had kids and I do feel glad because they'd be at that college type age now most likely and i love doing H&S for a living and my partner is an IT network engineer for the NHS for many years but we wouldn't have been able to encourage kids to follow us into either of our professions because there's just no entry level jobs!
I saw someone on LinkedIn advertising their new software packages that can automatically do loads of basic h&s admin and be used to give people electronic site inductions etc and basically free up managers to do other things - I actually posted on their ad that they are stopping people getting a foot in the profession!

👆🏻 this. I am at 5 staff and there is no benefit to me taking on another! So I have upgraded all systems to take advantage of AI and other tech to leverage meaning I now won’t have to recruit in for quite some time as the team has capacity.

I also used to bring in and train a lot of the next generation, I just won’t be able to do that moving forward as I won’t have the resources.

I am rather sad about it in many ways, but as an employer I have to roll with the punches and my commitment has to be to keeping the company profitable enough to keep the current 5 in work!

I''ve got a master's degree, years of experience including running a successful business. I earn just above minimum wage and there are zero suitable jobs available in the area live in. It's shit.

I have the opposite problem, can't find someone for a role in my team!

Yes it is fixed term but salary is about right for the role/industry, it's home based with limited travel (no minimum office requirements) and we've compromised on the qualifications/ experience when reviewing CVs.

Hello fellow juggler, they have really shafted us. I was celebrating surviving and keeping 8 staff in jobs over Covid and beyond and I come out the other side to this utter shit show.

Anybody going through the hell of job hunting lately will probably be against taking a job that offers no longer term stability and promises to kick them out after the fixed term ends. People want to get out this difficult jobs market and stay out plus fixed term work causes problems when someone wants something like a mortgage.

Read with interest.. DD 54 in this position. She's got a lot of valuable experience in various fields. She was a manager of one of the main big supermarkets during Covid,has managed a team of over 200 people in a call centre. She was in banking for many years, got made redundant from 3 different branches that closed. Her current job have just told her her hours are being cut, she knew they had problems,last year she was promised the management of this company.. she has taken at work, which is difficult because of the hours she already works.she had signed on with agencies, before this job, she worked as a postie,had to buy her own expensive steel toe cap trainers, for a temporary job. Has applied for so many. She is renting,has a cat loan after hers was unfortunately written off by a deer! She has credit cards, obviously needs to earn a certain amount . I have a friend with a son who has been a plumber/heating engineer over 20 years,who recently went for a job working on a caravan site... holiday caravans, general maintenance, didn't get it. He's been out of work a year.

Bar work,car written off, not cat! Actually the cat has had a lot of health issues!

I took a side step five years ago to get on the next rung of a niche ladder and despite gaining very relevant experience I still can’t get to that next rung now. Rather, I could but on less than what I’m currently being paid or on a fixed term contract on the same money/terms but with no pension and protection from job loss. Due to wage erosion I already feel I’m in less than I should be.