To think this is a joke? Companies want so much for nothing

[ALittleCrisp]

Just seen two job adverts saying "Advanced Microsoft package skills is an absolute must".

The pay? £7.80 and £7.85 an hour

This country really has a problem.

I have to agree with Plump

Sadly, so many business owners seem very resentful that they have to pay for skilled work.

I was doing spreadsheets in secondary school and that was about 15 years ago....

I suppose one way of looking at this would be to compare it with driving jobs. You have people who can drive cars (taxis, small package delivery) and get paid relatively little - this is your NMW/£8.00ph basic admin person. Then you get people who have HGV qualifications who get paid more - your "advanced" IT user in the office who can do some interesting things with Excel, manipulate word, maybe use the rarer packages such as visio, sharepoint or project to a good standard. PSV is a different skill set to HGV, perhaps compare that to IT support or basic programming, lower level data base admin - starting to be a shortage in the UK. Then you get the very specialist drivers (think Ice Road Truckers, Most Dangerous Roads, extraordinary loads) - these are the elite IT people who are the ones we desperately need more of in the UK.

The OP is talking about a basic car delivery wage for an HGV driver (according to the job spec)

Yes acorn. You would have. Back then

And at a basic level

It’s not hard to learn the basics though. If they’re going to teach spreadsheets at school it should be part of a financial education class imo not a dedicated “Microsoft packages” class. If they’re going to teach databases wouldn’t MySQL be more useful these days than access?

Need the theory first and that's easier to learn the basics in access

"Businesses need staff who can at least use these and also create functional spreadsheets and databases."
Do you mean access? If so I don't agree as it's fairly obsolete. If you mean other databases, I don't think they fit into the remit of general it skills. I have spent much of my working life designing, developing and query databases and developing processes in databases. I don't think it counts as basic it skills in the way being able to open, type some formulas into excel and run a macro does.

We have asked for competency in use of ms office in adverts before and some people thinking they can turn on a computer and browse the internet and maybe type a letter is enough.

I suspect they just want someone able to use ms office confidently which I think all school leavers should be able to do. So no I don't think that is an issue for an entry level position which is normal to pay minimum wage for.

I have no higher qualifications and I get paid more than that by my employer to do incredibly basic admin.

If we don’t tackle this the result will be higher immigration from India etc

Maybe, maybe not. What will happen is companies will farm out work to IT companies based in India. Last company I worked for, has started slowly moving some of it's IT function to India. Bit by bit so no bad publicity, just quiet redundancies for UK staff doing that work.

Maybe it is aimed at someone about 18 who has done a college course in MS, then the pay would be more than minimum wage but ok for a first job.

I do quite basic scientific admin using fairly basic word and excel and I would get just over £20k if I was full time but I have been doing it for years in various jobs so have had pay rises over the time.

Minimum wage age 18-20 is £5.90 going up to £6.15

It sounds to me like they're looking for an office junior. So it's a role that would suit a school leaver but they're not allowed to say that in the ad. I've noticed a trend on Mumsnet with this kind of op that people post a job description that's clearly underpaid for the skill set and loads of people go "that seems reasonable". It's weird because Mumsnet seems to be a fairly liberal place but they're totally fine with people being woefully underpaid

I know a couple of friends DC who got admin type jobs after doing college courses/apprenticeship aged about 18-20 who got jobs like this.

Meh - it's fine - like asking for excellent literacy skills

Wages have definitely gone down. I was on £32k 8 years ago and I'm currently out of work and looking and I'd happily take £32k if I could get it.

Prices of everything are going up but wages down so I can only assume the 1% are creaming it off.

Maybe it is aimed at someone about 18 who has done a college course in MS, then the pay would be more than minimum wage but ok for a first job

I think pay differences are so shocking. I earned £25K at 18. £30K just after turning 20

Different areas have different rates of pay though, wages for admin where I live in the Midlands is probably £16-20k, a friends DS(19) earned about £25k but that was in IT.

It's worth pointing out that for most job adverts most of the mandatory requirements in the job specification aren't mandatory at all. Looks like half is enough.

talent.works/blog/2018/11/27/the-science-of-the-job-search-part-vii-you-only-need-50-of-job-requirements/?fbclid=IwAR2o5f-1ihpxTo1gXAQKCiygLH6KqeXqU6sp53gg8qoHo1HbTXpUwDaRwgI

The few people I know with proper advanced MS skills are not in admin roles anyway and would not be the type of people to do this sort of job, they are doing completely different much higher paid jobs but enjoy doing spreadsheets and that sort of stuff.

*Every little thing a business has to pay for. It’s so hard. And so frustrating when you work your socks off and have to pay all this out.

Id be grateful for that opportunity if I was looking for work.*

Sourtart, I know you've copped a lot of flack, but all those things are routine business expenses. Paying business insurance because you run a business is no different from having to pay it because you run a car. Of course you have to pay tax, we all do, it's part of the social contract.

If you find it "frustrating" to meet the financial obligations of running a business, then maybe you should jack it in and become a wage slave. If you realised how "frustrating" it is to "work your socks off" for minimum wage and still not have enough to live on and keep a roof over your head, you'd be bloody grateful not to have to do it.

Low wages are a huge problem, for all of us: the amount of tax revenue that is paid out in propping up our low-wage economy is huge, and it affects us all, including people on minimum wage, who have to pay tax and NI on their earnings (if they're full-time) and anyone who ever buys a non-food item, which is surely everyone.

It makes us all poorer.

I think pay differences are so shocking. I earned £25K at 18. £30K just after turning 20

But you must know that those wages are not typical, particularly at those young ages.

The average full time worker earns about £28k pa and that includes graduates who are by definition older than 20. Most 20 YOs won't earn anywhere near £30k.

And retailers wonder why they are going bust/in profit warnings...yet they are the ones paying low wages and wondering why people can’t afford to buy more!

A friend of mine had to put advanced MS last year in a job ad. The ad prior to that said Basic skills, and the applicants knew the bare basics and simple things - email signature, how to add Outlook to devices, and a few other things weren't known to the applicant.
A part of the role included the above, simple Excel stuff and doing PP presentations.
No, he wasn't paying £30K pa because of the wording of the ad, he just wanted someone who knew what they were doing.

I've also seen ads with advanced mentioned and I did the logical thing and asked for further clarification about their requirements. And like my friend it's not always knowing the in-depths of MS just knowing a bit more than how to create a very basic word document.
I've also seen the same when it comes to Apple and employers wanting more than knowing how to switch on, surf, create a document and reply to an email.