To think if the job makes you miserable...

[Sorefret]

It's going to make you miserable no matter what you earn?

So, if people are leaving e.g. teaching or nursing in droves, increasing the pay isn't going to change that, there's something else wrong. In fact, you could even argue good pay makes the problem worse because it makes it easier to take early retirement.

So, what needs to change is the working conditions, not the pay, if you want to improve retention.

I left a very lucrative, but incredibly high pressure, career in commercial banking to teach. Theres no way I'd go back to that for any amount of money.

I think that for nurses surely a big part of the struggle is that if you make a mistake someone could die? So when you are short staffed and you know that the stress of needing to do five things at once and maybe getting one wrong could have life threatening implications, I don't blame them for resigning. And I think if they were paid 100k a year but had the same staffing shortages, many of them still wouldn't want to work in those conditions. Because 100k wouldn't help if you made a mistake that you knew you shouldn't and then you had to live with it.

Low pay Impacts on the conditions. Currently there is a lot of bloc in/bank working. That pays better but means that there is not a stable staff and understaffing as well.

Poor pay might influence the type of childcare you can get which affects your general life, for example worrying when you don’t leave exactly on time.