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

COVID is over!

The Covid-19 Inquiry into the Care Sector starts on Monday next week. No doubt the Government and the NHS are planning for the next pandemic (perhaps a flu pandemic) having learnt from past mistakes - hopefully long-term workforce planning and infection control in the care sector is part of that.

They get the bugs from work not the other way around

Infectious diseases in residential care homes usually originate outside the care home but then of course they can spread inside the building. It was reported in 2020 that agency staff were likely spreading Covid-19 between care homes. If your partner's aunt catches a bug and then works in a different care home the following day, or goes back to an HMO she shares with other residential care workers, who work across different care homes, then she may be helping to spread her bug to another vulnerable community (flu can also kill):

https://www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathclyde/news/2022/carehomesreliantonagencystaffmorethantwiceaslikelytospreadcovid-19studyconfirms/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/agency-staff-were-spreading-covid-19-between-care-homes-phe-found-in-april

People from the wider world where there's a lot of far more dangerous diseases going about and far less vaccination against anything!

According to the WHO here, 74% of the population in India and 75% of the population in the Philippines had received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, compared to 42% in Romania and 31% in Bulgaria;

https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/vaccines

I’ve been out of work and claiming disability benefits since mid 2023. I’m hoping to be looking for work again in the coming months and have been looking at websites like Indeed and eTeach.

I’m so worried for the future as there don’t seem to be many jobs available. I thought there would be lots of roles like Teaching Assistants or Learning Support Assistants being advertised as I heard that that schools are crying out for them. However, there doesn’t seem to be many vacancies advertised at all.

The roles that are advertised at the moment, all seem to be temporary too. I wonder if it’s to do with the recent NI increases and potential changes to the unfair dismissal legislation?

But please don't think I'm looking down on professional jobs. Most people don't want to do long hours and get wet. However, I loved escaping the daily grind and find a 10hr day on site goes quicker than an eight hour day at a desk.

For me it's the constant change of scenery and tasks. And the fact that I'm not mentally stressed most of the time. Most days I have a couple of hours waiting around where I can do my life admin stuff or have a snooze, and when I'm out and about I'm listening to podcasts or music.

I think a lot of people would enjoy what I do if they actually spent a week out with me. Granted, this week's been a killer but I've earnt a lot and next week I'm being paid training. And then I've got a fortnight on the backshift doing 7pm until 11:30-1pm. 4.5-6 hours work for almost £350 and then having Friday off as paid rest.

I do see quite a few other women onsite nowadays though. For some reason a lot seem to drive tippers or the small loaders. There's plenty of jobs that don't require physical strength because civil construction is machine intensive - excavation etc.

Interesting thread and it’s good to hear about different construction roles, but it really annoys me to hear the old constant excuse for high wages in male dominated sectors ‘but someone could get killed if he does it wrong’. And now long shifts too.

Ever heard of nurses? And midwives? Long shifts with risk of causing death? For some reason when it’s a female dominated sector that’s an excuse to force more training at horrendous costs, while making conditions worse. With a tendency to be sued as well, increasingly, as well as assaulted on the job by those you’re trying so hard to help.

And thanks, @healthyteeth, all sounds good.

Not to take anything away from healthcare workers as I have a lot of respect for them but statistically construction is the most dangerous sector bar none. I don't think healthcare is even in the top ten in terms of workplace fatalities.

It annoys me to hear people whinging about 'male dominated' sectors tbh. Have you tried to get a job in construction? Would you? If not then you're part of the reason why it's male dominated.

I have massive respect for carers but I wouldn't do the job as it doesn't pay enough for me. I'd only do it for a loved one. I chose to work in the construction sector because I wanted a decently paid job that didn't involve sitting in a chair all day and smiling and nodding along to mostly male execs. Yes, I hear some pretty non pc banter but I can also tell men to fuck off, not worry about pretending to like them or whether that affects my career progression, and never worry about being pulled up by HR.

And tbf my comment was in response to a H&S advisor and IT worker, not healthcare workers who have to do manual labour.

No I am not part of the reason construction is male dominated. That is entirely down to sexism which has been aimed at women by men for at least a thousand years. Don’t forget how bad it has been within living memory of those of us with years to go in the workplace yet. I was even told as a child that I couldn’t have meccano as a girl, and was one of many told to go out and be pretty for the men in workplaces. It’s not that long since women were specifically booted out of work post-war.

I was not including fatalities of workers alone in healthcare, the statement is usually that men can cause death of all those around them. There are many deaths in places of healthcare.

So defensive of male privilege. Men always are.

COVID came into care homes via the residents. Residents were discharged from hospitals - where they caught COVID - into the care homes, thus infecting the other residents and the staff.

Not to derail the thread, but healthcare deaths are without a shadow of a doubt underreported. I've worked as a respiratory nurse and even just taking TB as an example (there were so many more horribly infectious things I dealt with), an unknown number of healthcare workers will have this disease lurking dormant in their lungs because of inadequate PPE, bad ward management, poor understanding of the disease and a misbelief that the vaccine they had a child will protect them as an adult (it won't). Tea ladies pottering into infectious rooms with a brew and no PPE, ward sisters telling student nurses to go in without PPE and hold their breath as though they are free divers. I distinctly remember an emergency in a TB room and the PPE usually parked outside had run out. Being told masks were on order, but wouldn't be in for a few days. Workers - mostly women but also some men - will get sick often many years after the occupational hazard that infected them.

Pondering more on this, I wonder how much better protected a modern-day construction worker on a large privately run construction site is against developing mesothelioma or silicosis, than a healthcare worker in the large state run NHS is against an infectious disease? I don't know the answer. I can say I felt distinctly UNSAFE in the NHS.

@JustPinkFinch interesting - one of my children has had TB and has spent a lot of time in hospitals. They'd had the jab too as a baby and still caught it, who knows where but perhaps while in hospital. So sorry to hear what NHS workers are put through, expected to just go ahead without proper PPE

If you'd read the thread you'd see I'm female. Although the bit about not wanting to have to defer to male execs should've been a giveaway.

No doubt there's more sexism in male dominated sectors but they're also often the jobs where competency can be easily measured. When I was bidding for big contracts it was a team effort, so often the loudest voices got the most praise. If a bid was lost it was always because of factors outside of the sales team (infrastructure etc) but if it was won it was always down to the excellent sales team. Managers seemed to make excuses more often for the guys they got on with.

When you're operating machinery yes there can be environmental factors, but it's hard to crack jokes about female drivers when the blokes have had more bumps and don't get it right first time as often, which is the case in my team. Honestly, I think the biggest factor here is that a lot of men are over confident whereas I always approach a task like it's the first time and don't make silly mistakes

But tbh another big factor IMO is that most women just don't want to do the dirty, manual jobs. How many of the feminists whinging about it are leading by example? They've all got gender studies or media degrees.

Most women don’t want to do the dirty manual jobs?
erm. Cleaning and care work is what precisely?!

Depends on the company. Tarmac/Heidelberg etc are almost over the top, but with good reason. Whilst with smaller companies I've had to refuse to get in and chip out a mixer due to them having run out of proper respirators (wanted me to use a shitty cardboard mask).

In bigger companies you won't ever get inside the drum of a mixer truck as even with suitable precautions chunks can still break off and fall off on top of you (weighing several hundred kg).

Most big companies won't let you use acid nowadays but I was using 36% hydrochloric acid at last place to clean truck. I've seen loads of guys doing it without proper goggles (safety glasses aren't enough protection against liquids) and I've seen some not using any eye protection at all.

OK, fair point but (without wanting to sound dismissive) most women with a 'career mindset' will go into something office based over something like a trade. Most cleaners I've met are either doing it part time or just because they've always done it.

I don't feel many women decide "I want to be a cleaner" in their teens like young men decide they want to do an apprenticeship/trade.

I also didn't meet a single female waste operative in almost four years working for a top three waste contractor - and the job isn't physically taxing like when men used to lift the bins. If you can put the bins out at home you could wheel them to the back of the truck. However, there were loads of women in the office.

Not cleaner no. But hairdresser, beautician for example

How physical is cutting hair though really? I know you're on your feet a lot more than an office job so need to be fairly mobile but you're not walking 12 miles a day like the average council waste operative.

But I didn't come here to have an argument. I agree that a lot of male dominated jobs probably seem intimidating to some women, but I also don't think some of the rhetoric helps either. I always hear about how physical it is but there are lots of jobs that aren't in civil construction where a lot of it is machine based (which doesn't contradict my previous point because I was talking about the jobs that are dirty and physical).

Engineers, surveyors, machine drivers, technical (our Technical Manager is female and excellent, has just been promoted from regional to national technical lead). There's loads of options and I don't buy that sexism is the barrier feminists claim it to be. Certainly not at the big companies.

It's all about diversity at the big company I'm at now. There's a massive poster of two lesbians in our canteen (obvious because the wording is about safely returning to your partner/family at the end of the day) and they don't tolerate the stuff you used to see in this sector.

They actually sacked a gateman last week for racist comments. He was always lovely to me but apparently had a thing against Asians. It was his workmate that reported him - a massive bearded biker guy with tattoos all up his neck. He told me something to the effect of "I told him I didn't want to hear it and I'd report it if he carried on. So I did".

But thankfully we don't get all the woke nonsense and gender stuff.

But I have to say that after a few years in this sector my feelings are that a lot of the feminist rhetoric about the construction sector/male dominated industries is just people trying to bend reality to fit their narratives.

You wouldn't let a plumber give you advice on your electrics so why would you listen to somebody who works in an office based graduate job who's never set foot on a construction site?

@PregnantBarbie you have either internalised a lot of the typical male misogyny by working with them or… I don’t know what. The male trades are male trades because men kick women out of them, either directly by legislation and force or indirectly through rampant sexism and sexual harassment. You’re ignoring that. You’re also ignoring the fact that trades are still not places that young girls are encouraged into on a daily basis - the fact that we still have news stories of ‘oh look a female gets into formula one’ tells you how rare and newsworthy that still is. The trades that women are allowed into are not low states in and of themselves, they are low status because women do them: conversely the trades that men do are not inherently more valuable and difficult and dangerous as you are repeating, they are high status because men do them and men never see or value the work of women. I have had boys of 6 years old in a school staffed entirely by women - teachers, TAs, receptionists and cleaners with visiting health staff - tell me that no women work, and where’ve they got that defiance of reality from? Until you’re prepared to accept the sexism that shines through your words it’s very difficult to take anything you say seriously.

Ps you’re also strongly avoiding the issue of childbearing and child caring and the motherhood penalty, and the constraints that has caused ever since modern work patterns began.

I have also worked in hospitals, where no one - no one - has the time, with efficiency drives, senior low-grade gaslighting (so and so manages 12 patients at a time, that ward expects you to handle 15) - to don and doff ppe every time you pop into a room to ask if they want a cup of tea or water and then to deliver it, or food. Of course healthcare injuries are under reported, slow accumulations are always going to be. Most healthcare workers I knew in the 00s had damaged backs, some very seriously with shortened lives and low quality - but it wasn’t on any official figures.

Same. 20yrs experience, was on an FTC until sep25 so started looking mar25....still looking, almost an entire year. Never known it this bad, its been 6mo to find something at most in the past - this looks really bleak.