Why are wages so fucking bad in 2017? They're the same as the 80's/ 90's?

[BaydreamDeliever]

My mum moved to London in the 80's and worked for a high end shop. I've just had a look at the position they are advertising for at the moment, and it's a touch above min wage. My mum was able to afford to live on her wage back then, even though it wasn't big bucks, there is no way I could live on what they are offering today.

Wages are basically the same as years ago if you are in a lot of jobs. And the culture of 'internships' has further fucked everything. I see loads of these paying nothing or paying maybe £50 a day, demanding quite specific software skills. Entry level doesn't seem to mean entry level anymore.

I get that there always must be winners and losers in society as it's structured now, but seriously how can things churn on with workers being paid such shit money? If they do away with tax credits or housing benefit - what then? What will happen? I don't get it and I'm scared thinking of it. I'm educated, have a bit of experience in certain fields but not in any that pay reasonably. There must be millions like me in that same boat.

Scary clown for a start with regard to your comment about senior managers educated in the 50's being unfamiliar with computers - your maths isn't great because that would make them 65 plus. Unlikely they would still be employed. Also some young graduates are extremely conceited re their abilities but lack the personal and social skills for a business environment.

How do you put up with it? Why not specialise so you can make salary leaps? I started on £25k in 2013, went to £30k in 2015, £38k in 2016 and now £45k. This was through specialist training (in my own time) and either moving companies or being promoted.

There are lots of specialist areas that are crying out for staff and having to pay a lot to recruit them. One example is data protection specialists.

I took a similar approach to Capricorn76 and chose a profession with bloody difficult exams (20 to 40% pass rate on most papers), high complexity and rapidly growing demand.

This was through specialist training (in my own time)

The cost of training is probably what stops most people doing it. You need to have a good amount of disposable income to begin with to be able to afford thousands of pounds in fees for professional qualifications. If you earn a big salary you could access career development loans too, because you're a good risk to a lender. If you're already struggling for money, naturally you're a bad risk so they're out of reach.

Also, in order to do most professional study you need to be working in the field in some way, so it's catch 22 if you can't get a foot in the door in the first place.

It's threads like these which make me happy about Brexit. We are all living longer and our population is growing and it's becoming unsustainable. We simply cannot support the number of people in the country whether that be competitively paid jobs, housing or public services. The only way to control the population is to limit immigration and we need that to happen.

Oh, yeah, Brexit is going to make it all so much better for the worker .

I read so much about migrants = low wages & low skills level = luck of training= low wages. And taking work from British citizens.

Here is a fact for you:
OH working in industry, that to some extent is a victim of progress and producing cheaper work in China.
However, with shipping times of several weeks, there is a niche market here in Britain for what he does. (The wages for a trained employee are extremely high for what it's worth!)
Now the punchline: OH company was desperate to recruit AND train the people it needs... training and employment guarantee. The package was substantial and lucrative for the right candidates! Well, they had some British trainees but none of them lasted past the first month! Work was to hard, hours to long, money not enough (it was a starting wage above nmw + generous bonus). Not able to keep to set deadlines- basically a sh* attitude to work!
So the company started employing migrant workers from the EU.... they seem to accept the working hours, don't complain, can just as well be trained on the job and are "happy" to work for less than British citizens. Win win situation for the company, although morally soon wrong!
When do people wake up to reality? I bet it's the same people who complain about migrant workers that didn't want these jobs 5-10 years ago. (Because benefits paid more over 24 months than a trainee position... only 10 years down the line, and employment with good wages would have been available! And the migrants would have been squeezed out!)

Why are people making the assumption that Brexit will reduce immigration?

Yes, to a certain extent the solution is to specialise. DH has done this and he is in demand.

Specialise? Great idea. But things change you know. The job my DP is doing in his mid 50s was a speciality 35 years ago. Now lots of people do it. Happens all the time with specialist jobs.

Get a job that needs people to do it and can't be done abroad. And can be done anywhere on the country. And is needed. Stop people from abroad doing it so it has to be done by someone British.

Doctor, nurse, care worker, teacher....

We are all living longer and our population is growing and it's becoming unsustainable

The ageing population is British the much needed younger populations required to keep pensioners getting their pensions are from a variety of sources, of which immigration is highly important. It was reported a year or two ago that most immigrants contribute to tax and ni in the uk but many are returning to their homeland for retirement this not taking from pensions or NHS in old age. That would make them net contributors and not the burden you make them out to be.

Interesting - well okenty of people work, especially into senior management, ceo, president, academia into their 70s but in any case, someone at 65 or so, definitely did start their education in the 50s.

I have been one of those 'students who don't have the 'personal and social skills' Mainly being the skill of pretending not to notice how fucking awful your bosses are. When I decided to not give a fuck and do what I wanted within autonomy, my boss worked all out to get me fired, block me, and leave me unsupported, but I still achieved three times a 5 year target in three years, and exposed his fucking incompetence. Sure I got fired, but he also lost his imaginary status, and the freedom to deliberately employ shit people to keep him in his place.

I meet far more senior managers, middle managers and crap supervisors who shouldn't have jobs than I do graduates - graduates are far less likely to be inveigled into weird jealousy-led power games than useless senior staff who are aware of their incompetence.

I now earn less than I got in my first job 30 years ago.

I bought my first house in 1988 when I was earning £6,000 a year. House cost £18,000.

Same house up for sale last year was £180,000. I don't earn £60,000...

Also, rates on my house were £92 a year. Council tax is now £1,800 a year.

It is actually because our economy is so weak. Our economy, in spite of what we get told by politicians, is in a mess

So far, taking main ideas from the thread I'm thinking:

The move from a manufacturing to a service based economy.

Neoliberalism in politics leading to less regulation of our employers and trade unions being beaten to a pulp.

Increased automation meaning there are less jobs available.

Cheaper labour in developing countries meant many companies moved to these countries.

Lack of investment in infrastructure that would've created jobs.

Increases in CEO pay.

Shady banking practices leading to the 2008 crash, and still going on today.

The attitude of 'your lucky to have a job' being perpetuated by the media and stopping people from demanding more pay and better conditions.

People retiring later and immigration meaning there are more working age people around than 20 years ago.

bad

Don't forget that the UK has almost full employment... the problem is not lack of jobs, it's low wages!

There are a lot of poor quality jobs (zero hours contracts, the fake self-employed like Uber) but even the jobs that demand solid qualifications and could lead to good careers in large companies have gone "bad".

Apparently employers are desperate to pay good wages for the right staff and the poor lambs just can't recruit, but we have a generation of underutilised, overqualified young people. I don't get it!

Elvira you can probably include MLMs in that now too.

@Scaryclown not every thread about employment has to turn into one of your diatribes about how you are so brilliant and yet every employer sacks you 🙄

@BadKnee I understand what you are saying, but as a counterpoint I needed a specific item for a cake I was making. I went to 4 small shops in my local area and none of them had it. No one offered to order it in for me. No one had the knowledge to suggest an alternative. I found it on Amazon and had it the next morning. Believe me, I want to use local shops, but how can I when they have no interest in or knowledge of the products they are supposed to sell.

I have definitely experienced the ridiculous disparity between wages and house prices. We bought our first house in 1998 for about £50k. We had a £10k deposit and DH was bringing home about £200 a week. Our mortgage payment was £250ish a month, so 1.5 week's wages. That house would now cost £150k, and mortgage payments on that amount would be almost 2.75 week's wages at DHs current rate. That is the real cost of how wages have decreased.

Good points Elvira.

It really annoys me when Theresa May talks about full employment and lower unemployment figures. It's so complex behind the headline data.

Coupled with massive personal debt, people stretched to the limit on low interest mortgages etc, it won't take much for it all to crash.

I started work 40 odd years ago, I was earning less per annum than I was per week when I retired 2 years ago working 2 mornings a week.

The point is, Wombling, is that we still have a culture where very high performers are fired. That kind of incompetent management is never going to be able to recognise, or reward people appropriately because their attitude to juniors is that they are combatants in a game of who can disadvantage who rather than a member of a team or colleague who should be fairly rewarded for the work they do.

Its an attitude thing that is very English.