To think you can’t really get a decent PT job unless you already work there

[Metoodear]

So following on from my post about working PT I getting loads of people saying yep rally easy to woke pt I get 30, 40k pro rata blah blah however these are often women who have worked for a company for a number of years then reduced after maternity leave i am also not talking about PT were you drop one day but are still working 9-5 four days a week

This kind of PT working is not what I was talking about I am talking about after having done a qualification then after having 2-5 years out of work after being a SHAM trying to find a PT job that is under 25 hours a week that is not in a school admin or retail in a company you never worked for
i am a support worker but have had to take a job at the lower end of the pay scale in order to secure 20 hours a week working i have friends that have degrees in physiology ect who work in admin and a friend who has a degree in a second language but is really struggling to find anything other than admin or work in a school for less than 25 hours after being at home for8 years

I myself have been looking for another job since I got my curroone and you just don’t see PT ones

"a friend who has a degree in a second language but is really struggling to find anything other than admin or work"

This is normal for language graduates even when looking for full-time work, unfortunately.

"Basically she calculated exactly what she needed to live on and expected us to reduce her hours to fit!"

Well, I've seen that work well many times.

I have had very negative experiences of working with part timers, as has my better half. It is however seemingly the norm in their sector and their previous sector to go to three days a week plus one home working after having children if office based, of four days a week if home based. Likewise a couple of old schoolmates work condensed hours cramming a full week into three days.

The expectation however does seem to be that you prove you are going to be hard to replace working five days a week before an employer will consider wether retaining you is worth the trouble of part time or more flexible working.

Alternatively if you can carve a niche in high demand you may find people offering you part time because they are desperate. Last year one prospective employer approached me and offered job with the option for 20%-100% job. I turned it down because whilst well paid it was not what I wanted to be doing, or remotely where I wanted to work, and it would have been a waste time for career progression. Were it a more readilly fillable job they would never however have been offering part time.

I asked some school mums who claimed to be out of the workforce because there were no part time jobs what would put them off applying for my vacancy and basically they wanted school hours 2 or 3 days a week with a paid leave allowance to cover all school holidays and inset days

This is exactly the point I was making. Why is an employer going to want you if you make your requirements so unreasonable? Everyone would like to be off all the school holidays but the reality is that it would be completely unsustainable for most employers. Who would be covering your work? Throwing a strop because you can’t find exactly the right position in your field, with the right money on the doorstep only serves to make other part-time workers look indulged, when the reality we’re busting our chops to make it work for everyone.

Blair- you were complaining about the cost of living earlier on the thread, yet you now seem to be suggesting that ‘everyone’ works fewer hours! How does that work then, when you seem to want more money?

My issue is things shouldn’t cost an extortionate amount in the first place. Houses shouldn’t cost £150,000+, transport shouldn’t be £4,000+ per year etc.

There’s a chart somewhere which shows workers productivity has risen massively but wages haven’t, and that cost of living has risen massively, but wages haven’t.

Here.

So your issue is about the cost of living Blair. I also wish things weren’t so darned expensive. That’s quite different from harking back to some ‘golden era’ when women were consigned to being housewives for most of their entire life.

I think I get what Blair is saying, it's better for kids (and most parents) to have two part time working parents. If I could choose I'd like every child to have that.

So many families can't have that because there is one parent and some can't because both parents want to be out of the home more than that and that's life. I do think it's worth families stopping and thinking about alternative models of working and not sleepwalk into a sexist dynamic. If it were more the norm to work part time then there would be less sexism in the workplace. Lots of people say thier dp earns more than them and that's why they stay at home. Why does thier dp earn more? Is the difference really that big that you should your whole career on hold? Are you not going to progress or are you not worthy of the rewards working brings?

We can change this if we want to, by being role models, giving our daughters high expectations of what they can achieve and their worth and educating our sons to value people as people and actively undermining stereotypes.

So your issue is about the cost of living Blair. I also wish things weren’t so darned expensive. That’s quite different from harking back to some ‘golden era’ when women were consigned to being housewives for most of their entire life.

It is, but it’s also that two parents are expected to work full time. I’m not bothered who stays home really, I don’t think it should or has to be the mother, but I think family life has taken a real hit with the introduction of two working full time parents. I’m talking population level so not attacking individual families who suit this set up.

My issue is “careers” and worki. Is put on more of a pedestal by society than family life and I think it negatively impacts us all.

I have two part time jobs. I had never worked at either place before. I wanted job A and it happened not to be full time. I applied and got the job. I then saw job B which fitted in perfectly with the hours of job A and applied and was really lucky to get it. I didn't have a problem finding the jobs or getting them (I think there weren't may applicants!) But progressing up the ladder in both is much harder when you are part time as people don't see you as equally committed as the full timers, there's less time to demonstrate your skills, you can't take on as much work etc.... :(

I am in a professional job. In my field it is not unusual for people to be able to get part-time work as the big firms are quite accommodating for at least 4 day weeks. Some firms are a bit cagey about letting you have 3 days. But that said it's not impossible to work 3 or 2 1/2 or even 2 days going into a new job.

I agree that even in my area (finance) if you didn't happen to be very specialist with a very marketable skill then you might struggle in competition with an equally qualified applicant who wanted to work full time.

I always think that employers are getting a very good deal in my type of job from a 4-day a week worker. They are pretty much full-time roles. So we just do the same job in less time.

@BlairWaldorfsHeadband

Did you just not bother to read my post?

If everyone worked part time, surely you’d have more time with your DH, friends, parents? Yes and I said that would get boring after a while. I spend plenty of time with friends and family, and when i'am at work i get to spend time with different people.

You could visit the cinema, take up pottery making, read a book, volunteer...there are so many things you could do that I don’t see how you could “get bored”. And like i said these all cost money, so cost of living would go up. How many times should i go to a cinema each week? Why volunteer, when i could go to work and get paid?

I love my family, but if we all had to spend as much time together as you are suggesting, we'd probably fall out after about a week!

I have a good work/life balance working FT, and i earn a really good salary which is what is important to me.

*@RiverTam

Lazyyou haven’t answered the question. No-one has so far, either of those questions. You’ve just dodged it by saying it’s not what you’d want. I’m not interested right now in what you’d want. I’m interested in an answer to this question.*

Because i dobn't care why it works/doesn't work in Germany/Holland!

People who work part-time, ime, aren’t just sat around at home doing nothing on their non-work days. What a very strange notion.

But i now earn less money because i'm part time, so how do i afford to go out and do things? And now instead of trying to think of things to do on 2 days off, i'm gonna have 3 or 4 days off to fill, that sounds exhausting week in and week out.
I love being in my house, at least 1 day of every weekend is spent at home doing bits round the house and watching a boxset or something on tv.
I also love my job and my team, and enjoy seeing them and doing my job 5 days a week! That is how i want to spend my time

Today 07:12 MargeryB

“I think I get what Blair is saying, it's better for kids (and most parents) to have two part time working parents. If I could choose I'd like every child to have that.”

But that’s just one view. It may be the ideal for some families, but not for others. Plenty of men and women want full time work. Some men and women are in high powered roles which require full time or almost full time commitment and they get sufficient remuneration and job satisfaction that it makes it worth their while. And some families (we’ve heard from some on this thread) want a set up where one partner works in a high powered role and the other looks after everything in the home.

Bottom line is, there is no clear evidence that having both parents working part time is better for families. (How do you measure ‘better’ anyway?) There May be anecdotes from individuals that this is what they would prefer, but that doesn’t create a model
Which society should adopt!

I’m still intrigued about how the economics of this would work anyway, and how various different professions would operate safely and productively if no one worked full time hours. To be entirely honest there’s a danger of the tone on this thread being a very middle class ‘problem’; ie women who want to work but want to do it on exactly their terms, hours to fit around the rest of their lives, with other people (presumably working their butts off!) to sort out the logistics of how that would work economically!

Oh and if anyone read the news this morning apparently only 6% of the workforce now work traditional 9-5 anyway, so Clearly flexible working is a much bigger thing than many realise anyway.

Lazypuppy - it's not about you though. Working ft suits you -great.
Working ft does not suit very large numbers of people (usually women) with families. Lots of people (usually women) would like to spend time with their children whilst maintaining their skills and bringing in a bit of money. So that when they can return to the workplace full time, they havent massively lost out. Women are disproportionately affected by the lack of part time work.

Wrote a massive post and lost it but suffice to say there’s a lot more to Holand’s Maternity benefits than a minimum of 16ww ML (best not to cherrypick, eh ?) and I’m still not seeing how these systems can work in Holland and Germany but not here. Germany must have come up with solutions to the challenges you mention, or maybe they think those challenges are more than offset by the benefits (of course, Germany does have a falling birthrate so providing generous parental benefits has a value all of its own there).

I didn’t see it. I apologise, it was 3am and I was awake with ligament pain lol.

I love my family, but if we all had to spend as much time together as you are suggesting, we'd probably fall out after about a week!

You see, I don’t feel I spend enough time with mine and I only work three days! I see my parents most days, and we go out with my DC, I see DP after work, but I honestly don’t feel we get enough time together.

I think it’s quite sad (I don’t mean that in an offensive way) that you wouldn’t be able to think of ways to fill your time on your days off!

As for those things costing money, you can also do free things. We are members of the national trust, which after the up front cost means we can visit any of these sites for free. I take a picnic and a football and my DC loves it! There’s also parks, which are free, libraries, kids groups which are usually a couple of pounds. I’m not rich at all, in fact I think we are probably classed as quite poor, and we manage cheap days out.

I think this depends on a career vs a job. I do my job because I have to/ if I won the lottery and someone told me I never had to work again I’d be elated. I don’t have a horrible job, I just hate the aspect of having to work when I could be with my children and supporting my family (my grandparents are disabled and I am the only grandchild who sees them regularly, and I wish I could do more to help them.)

but I think family life has taken a real hit with the introduction of two working full time parents.

2 ft working parents wasn't "introduced". It is because over time more and more people opted for that model, thus outpricing the single working parent household.

All this railing about lack of pt and high cost of living is essentially complaining that others have made the choice to work harder and for more money. Why should these people be forced to live like a part timer or single parent family?

I don't want to live in Holland or Germany. They get paid less there for the equivalent job. I have worked in many global firms and in my field it is a fact that those countries are less profitable. They also pay more taxes. I don't want my salary to subsidise part timers. I suppose part timers could move to those countries but the UK works fine for me in terms of the balance struck with maternity/paternity/parental leave and its flexible working regulations.

Id be happy to pay more taxes for a fairer society that’s more focused on child rearing and family life than finance and greed, personally. European countries tend to be less selfish than the U.K. as a whole, I find. It’s a completely different culture.

The U.K. is, on the whole, a miserable selfish place I think. Before you ask why I don’t move, u have family here and I couldn’t just leave them.

I have*

@blair - you are cherry picking the parts you want. A 3 year left open of a job, a workforce where the majority are part time. I’m assuming you’d want that PLUS our v generous 52 week mat leave policy? I doubt those go hand in hand.

Additionally - @blair has said quite clearly that given a choice - she wouldn’t work. So this isn’t about PT working at all really.

I actually wouldn’t mind less maternity leave if the job I was returning to was part time and childcare didn’t cost my entire wages.

Ideally I wouldn’t, however as I have to, I would like the part time options to be better.

Sorry i haven't rtft but i completely agree with you. A
I work pt around school hours etc and i believe i only had shifts authorised due to working there+10 years. I darent move elsewhere. Even working from home would have to be pt as i still want to spend time with dc.

Going ft isn't an option when i have the school holidays. Id rather only worry about childcare 3 days of the week rather than 5 plus i like spending my days off with the kids.

But you’ve chosen to have a child in this society - knowing that you couldn’t afford to live on one income but unhappy with the culture? I find that bizarre to be honest.

If your DH had a better paid job this wouldn’t even be a discussion you were participating in - surely your ire should be directed that way rather than a lack of PT roles that fit a very specific set of criteria that won’t fit many employers requirements?

Rosa - this has moved on now to apparently a fundamental cultural problem in the UK / a problem with the system...

@blair - but now I would NOT be happy with short maternity leave. I do work part time - in my view - 4 days - and I took a full years maternity leave. Worth every penny. I have credibility and a reputation - I have flexible working and an employer who accommodates my childcare needs - within reason! There’s no way I’d sacrifice the luxury we have of long maternity leave.