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

Yeah, and on the other hand I have a friend who has gotten a managerial job after 11 years of not working. And before that she maybe worked for 2-3 years in her life. The job market is bonkers.

I’ve a very small business and am not employing, when historically I am at the point where I probably would have.

AI has helped me streamline tasks, technology in general can do part of a job, and the costs and regulations around employees means I’d rather maximise technology and AI before I ever employ.

Thats at a very small business level, I’d imagine every big company that exists is doing the same at scale.

It’s the traditional ‘knowledge’ jobs that are being replaced by AI….I use it for marketing, branding, process documents/ management, basic legal requirements. I guess 5 years ago I’d have to have bought in those services. No longer.

It's been like this for a while now. I really hate employers that put emphasis on experience. It should be judged on qualifications, credentials and attributes. How is someone supposed to get experience in the first place if no one will give them a chance? I even saw a vacancy for cleaner which demanded experience the other day - we all have homes and hopefully we all keep them clean! Job hunting is exhausting, can be morale reducing and frustrating. If I got a builder out to give me a quote, he'd bill me an invoice for his time, so I don't see why employers don't pay people for attending interviews. After all, it costs job seekers in time and money to attend. It would take the strain off of the system on JSA payments and also encourage more people to be proactive in looking for work if job seekers have to pay for their time.

I also hate employers who advertise on sites such as Indeed and you click to apply and are taken to an external site and asked to register all over again on their site. There's just not enough time in the day to do that for every application.

A big part of the problem is that the UK is an overpopulated island. I don't believe or agree with the notion that migration is wonderful because people from oversees do the jobs that citizens don't want to do. In this climate, most English would take any job that they can get. I know of English people who are chomping at the bit for a role as a cleaner or carer. It's a pretty abysmal outlook but it's been slowly going this way for years. I hoped that leaving the European Union would change things but it seems not.

I'm really busy working in construction aggregates despite all the supposed doom and gloom about the sector the past few years. Started 3am today and still trying to get finished!

Maybe someone needs to send this thread over to the government...

I sometimes wonder if this is partly down to the push for everyone to get degrees. Loads of people with generic degrees looking for professional jobs. I think if you had say an engineering degree you'd find something. I've been with Tarmac on HS2 this week and they have a fair few different vacancies needing filled.

The traffic marshalls here are on over £40k basic!

DH was a senior marketing professional on high six figures...made redundant last year and still looking. It's terrifying - everyone keeps saying what an amazing CV he has, he's had 'positive conversations', sweated his not inconsiderable network - and nothing. He's in a group of about 15 peers (all male, 50s, very talented but there is no work). He's applied for minimum wage jobs, retail jobs, fractional work, consultancy....nothing. It's really brutal out there. We've got about another year of savings and I've landed a job (but on about a 1/3 of what he was earning and which covers about 80% of our bills) but it's really scary how fast AI and brutal taxes are affecting job markets.

I totally agree with the notion about the mindless mass immigration and the inability to properly control it. No wonder people are turning to parties like Reform who are anti-immigration, not because they are racist, but because they recognise that Britain is bursting at the seams and there’s lack of jobs, housing etc…because of it, to the detriment of the British citizens who were born here.I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if Brexit hadn’t happened. Brexit at least stopped the influx from Europe but there’s still loads of people coming here from elsewhere.

I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall.

I wish there was an actual careers advisory service for adults. A proper one, not the shitty ones that are online.

A lot of working class children from
the 90s and 00s (me) who had a cleaner mum and factory worker dad, actually had no idea about what sort of industries were even available. My parents weren’t anywhere near higher education etc, so had no clue that I wasn’t getting from school, what I probably needed. Which was direction and not just to hairdressing or office worker!

Im still on a rant

I get that totally
sometimes I read job descriptions and I’m “but what do you actually DO?”

How on earth did Brexit stop the influx! We weren't using countless hotels, barges and airbases to house asylum seekers before Brexit! Brexit removed millions of EU workforce and created a wealth of job vacancies that sit empty now - such as social care jobs and hospitality! Brexit caused the worst migrant crisis of all time! Literally record numbers! When the Tories told the TV cameras that Brexit was opening up recruitment to the wider world rather than our fellow Europeans it was like ringing the world's biggest bell to summon everyone to us avs if course this disastrous Brexit got rid of our right to return anyone to France and cut us off from the shared EU resource and plans to tackle migration! It's been a confirmed disaster as far as migration is concerned! Nobody can seriously see an alternative version of events to what we've all seen! Brexit was a big embarrassing fail!

Brexit isn’t related to asylum as the peak was 2002 just by another way to enter.

ETA thought this was a different thread. The job market is bad op sympathies.

The job centre got me a job coach when I was made redundant. I couldn't claim any benefits but I was allowed a job coach. Try looking up the National Careers Advisory service i think it's called.
I left school in 1995 and careers advice was garbage then too.

On the other side of the coin it seems almost an assumption that most middle class kids will go to uni, and many have no idea that they'd likely earn more in a trade. Granted, many do OK but there are also many that hate the hamster wheel of corporate ladder climbing but just don't have any insight into what else is out there.

As somebody with ADHD I absolutely detested sitting at a desk doing paperwork and making calls all day. So much happier doing stuff on site. Day goes much quicker and has much more variety.

Brexit removed millions of EU workforce

According to the 2021/22 Census there are 4 million EU citizens living in the UK - 500,000 more than the ONS were expecting - how many millions more do you want?

Brexit was opening up recruitment to the wider world rather than our fellow Europeans

Over 6 million people applied to the EU Settlement Scheme, including one million people not born in the EU (mostly born in Asia, Africa and South America); 'the UK’s membership of the EU freedom of movement was a major driver of immigration to the UK of people born outside of the EU.'

Brexit got rid of our right to return anyone to France

Between 2017 - 2020 (the UK was a member of the Dublin Regulation until 31 December 2020) we returned 139 asylum seekers to France under the Dublin Regulation and France 'returned' 492 asylum seekers to us.

and cut us off from the shared EU resource and plans to tackle migration!

The EU received nearly 3 million asylum applications in the last 3 years (not including Ukrainians) - whatever they were doing as a group it wasn't working very well.

Yes jobs like Civil Service may have been a good fit for those able to work from home at least part-time.

I guess the oligarchs wanted their rent money so forced a 60% return to offices in person…

They are coming with new strategies for dealing with migration, this has been spoken about in the last year and we won't have access to it! If we'd stayed in the EU we'd have had the ability to set up processing centres in France but Brexit slammed the door shut on that!

We've been left with a recruitment crisis whether you want to acknowledge it or not, Brexit stole vast swathes of social carers - tell the families left without support to care for relatives that need 24/7 care for complex needs that everything is wonderful, tell the NHS who can't discharge people to home care how wonderful Brexit is, or the young disabled people trapped in residential homes because your Brexit stole the people that enabled them to live independently!

How many are we turning back to France! Why did we need hundreds of hotels plus barges and airbases to house the migrants if we had the ability to send them all back!

Uni courses need a good looking at as there's far too many ridiculous degrees for things that won't result in a job like when you get the kids that say"I want to do sports journalism" etc - what jobs are they realistically going to get doing such niche degrees!

I know nothing of politics, but if those jobs paid adequately, then people like me would definitely be more inclined to do them.

Those jobs you mentioned are usually minimum wage with a lot of responsibilities, as well as massively hard work. I actually would chose to be in healthcare, rather than helping my boss get richer, but I can’t afford to live on minimum wage.

FlyMeSomewhere
If we'd stayed in the EU we'd have had the ability to set up processing centres in France but Brexit slammed the door shut on that!

We have bilateral deals with France on asylum so we could still set up processing centres in France if we wanted to.

Why did we need hundreds of hotels plus barges and airbases to house the migrants if we had the ability to send them all back!

We didn't have the ability to send them all back, only a few. Why don't France and Germany just send them all back to other EU countries if it's so easy?

The last three jobs I’ve had were: referral from a friend, old employer wanting me rejoin and a recruiter approach, so I’ve not had to apply for a new job since 2013.

Fast forward to now, and over the past 6 months, I’ve sent my CV out exactly 183 times. I’ve applied on company websites, done LinkedIn EasyApply and on one occasion been employee referred. I’ve also shared my CV speculatively with trusted members of my network in case they came across anything suitable.

Finally finally I’ve just been offered a FTC role for a year, and still feel numb about securing it, given the state of the market. It’s been absolutely brutal, I think I will probably spend the whole time recovering from this experience, only to have to dive in once again towards the end of the FTC.

Keep going if you are applying for new jobs, you will eventually get there.

This.

AI is changing the world of work NOW. So many roles are being slashed as AI can do them faster, cheaper and it doesn’t need sick pay or maternity/paternity leave etc.

If you Google how many jobs have been cut in the last 6-12 months at large companies globally you’ll be shocked.

This is probably going to be as big as the Industrial Revolution for our society. And we need to pivot now to survive. Recommend the work of historian Dr Eliza Filby.

That's exactly the problem, the EU workforce were able to work for a lower wage because it was a very good wage compared to where they came from, they lived in HMOs to keep the costs down and saved up a nest egg to eventually take home. Brexit neglected to take into account that companies wouldn't suddenly be able to pay far higher wages for British people with higher living costs hence why we need to process the migrants because these roles are hard to get British people into, the people sat on benefits know benefits is financially better than trying to struggle on the wages the EU workforce got.

People like Boris Johnson didn't want to talk about potential consequences of these things before pulling the plug.

FlyMeSomewhere
the EU workforce were able to work for a lower wage because it was a very good wage compared to where they came from, they lived in HMOs to keep the costs down and saved up a nest egg to eventually take home

Care workers living in HMOs and working across different care homes would seem to be an easy way to spread Covid, flu or norovirus from care home to care home - that doesn't seem like sensible workforce planning to me. Not to mention that Covid vaccination rates in countries such as Romania and Bulgaria are ridiculously low, so you want freedom of movement with vaccine hesitant countries?