National staff shortage in many insustries. And message on face book about unemployment.

[Heyhosliver]

On my f b page there are daily adverts for local jobs.
The staff in many local places are overworked ,often covering addirional shifts

One colleauge, who is very tired, has posted a message to the below effect.

' THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS UNDERSTAFFED.IF YOU DONT WORK AT THE MOMENT,ITS BECAUSE YOU DONT WANT A JOB'.
Asumme that they mean mentally and physically able people.
Is this true in a lot of areas.?
Are there shortages.? A local farm has had to waste crops, I constantly get asked to do more hours and my wage is above minimum.. what is going on ?

Spoke to a young Tesco driver this morning. He said they have vacancies for drivers, order pickers and warehouse hands. Tesco have raised the pay. And you dont need an HGV lisence to drive a Tesco size van. So there seem to be jobs around inr retail and warehousing.

However an HGV lisence training costs about 3K. Apparently Tesco are putting up the money for some drivers.

Tons of shortages here, especially retail, hospitality and construction.

Many people don't want to work those jobs for various reasons, though.

A friend is in the hospitality business. He said that a lot of younger EU workers moved home during the first lockdown. A lot were on 0 hours, temp contracts so didn't get furlough. They haven't come back due to Brexit. I expect this has hit areas where younger EU workers typically worked. My friend is Polish and is settled here but her brother came over to work in a warehouse but he left last summer and is in Germany now - again he was working on a 0 hours contract, no kids, no partner, so there was no point / reason for him to try and stay here with no income.

There are quite a few jobs which are reporting staff shortages in my area. Hospitality, retail, construction and schools / nurseries. Although I appreciate some of those were struggling to recuit prior to this year.

Umm Brexit…

The farms will be because they rely on paying people from other countries far less than anyone in this country would be paid.

But a lot of industries will be because the work isn't paid well enough. Pay people a fair wage (not just minimum) that you can live on and you'd see a difference.

A lot of retail and hospitality staff face daily abuse from customers, so no surprise people don't want to deal with that.

Tesco are offering 8 contracted hours. Iceland between 7-24. That isn't enough to get a decent top up in UC, or enough to live on. There's overtime but they won't contract you for it. It can be safer staying on benefits.
My DD is only been given 16-20 hours after being promised a contract for 24. She was on a fill shift 7am-11am. Now that shift is going to 5pm-10pm, she would just about make the last bus. She's having to swap shops.
There are shortages, but the gig economy has caused them. That and no forward planning for Brexit and investment in training. We need a benefit change for the under 25s, so them taking a job doesn't impact on HB. By the time they've paid the rent on family home, they might as well not be working.
My youngest has just left Pizza Hut to go on agency (race track/concerts) because PH was only giving her 12 hours some weeks, thanks to mismanagement.

Also our local Co-op didn't get a milk delivery because of a shortage of drivers. The adverts say 'experience wanted', how exactly do you get that? If taxi drivers jump ship, then we've a shortage of taxi drivers.

It is all part of Boris' oven ready Brexit plan.

Much like his promise not to raise taxes or National Insurance and to keep the pension triple lock.

I don't normally side with these kind of opinions, but I'm a bit inclined to think he's right. I'm very interested to hear from others who have been looking for work and been unable to find it for any reason, it would be interesting to hear if this is location dependent. From what I gather, and I don't agree with all their tactics (e.g. making life difficult for those with caring responsibilities), the government don't make it easy to choose to be out of work and claim benefits, you need to be actively looking and applying for jobs. Again, I'd be interested to hear if that's really the case. I do think that if someone could easily work, but chooses not to apply for certain jobs because they don't fancy them, that they need to have the means to support themselves and not claim income support.

So many claimed one if the main benefits of Brexit would be jobs becoming available to the Brits. Now the jobs are there for them bit they're not taking them. What a surprise that is!

Hopefully it will lead to better wages.

Unfortunately, some hospitality business are only willing to hire on min wage 0 hours contracts, which makes it a risky job to take if you are on UC, as the employer if giving no guarantee of hours.

I was unemployed for 8 months of this year after leaving my last job due to mental health issues. I now have a job I love which makes me happy. I spent ages looking and applying for the right job until I found this one. I could have gone for something in retail or other customer facing role but that wouldn't have made me happy and I wouldn't have stayed long-term. I don't have a driving license and would have struggled to book lessons even if I could spare the money. Basically, I was being somewhat picky about what I applied for in order to protect my mental health and longer-term employment prospects (wanted to build up experience and expertise and didn't want another job on my cv where I left soon after joining). I was fortunate to be able to do this (savings and DP earning a decent wage). It was a definite, positive choice and actually the opposite of because I "didn't want a job" long term.

I'm recruiting (retail,large company)

Just seived. through 26 cv's for 2 positions. All students telling me variations of they can work 3-7 on a Wednesday, a couple of hours on a Thursday , 5-7 on a Friday and an occasional Saturday! They put this on their cv and expect to be interviewed with these restricted availability's?

This is retail. Weekends are required! Also I'd like a bit of confidence they will stay and work more than 6 weeks. It's soul destroying.

Yes @Ponoka7 I can see how that's a real problem. The government really should (but I bet they won't) bring in legislation to put a stop to the gig economy. And if their UC rules actively discourage taking up paid work, they're not fit for purpose and need to be redesigned. I'm not surprised at all if that's the case, our government have been incompetent in so many different areas. It seems like a lack of investment, e.g. in training, and a lack of willingness to adapt pay and terms and conditions to attract and keep staff, has led to this scenario. Businesses may have been able to get away with it when their was a steady supply of labour, but now their isn't, and adjustment is needed. Both businesses and government need to recognise this and step up, or things will only get worse.

@Stellaris22

The farms will be because they rely on paying people from other countries far less than anyone in this country would be paid.

But a lot of industries will be because the work isn't paid well enough. Pay people a fair wage (not just minimum) that you can live on and you'd see a difference.

A lot of retail and hospitality staff face daily abuse from customers, so no surprise people don't want to deal with that.

Pay is one issue, but so many people don't want to work evenings or weekends. That's just not possible in many industries.

When I worked in retail (as a manager) I had so many people in interviews saying they wouldn't work weekends, didn't want to work shifts, didn't want to work evenings or early mornings or anything other than Monday-Friday, 9-5.

That's just not possible in those jobs. Supermarkets need morning, night and weekend staff. So do pubs, restaurants, bars and a whole host of other venues. Applying to work in a bar and refusing to work evenings is a bit like applying to be a nurse when you have a fear of blood.

Also another thing which put me off retail and hospitality was the unsociable hours and unpredictable shift patterns which would exacerbate my mental health problems (I need structure) and don't fit in with childcare needs and the family routine we have built up. Again, I was fortunate to be 'able' to turn these down and I did not go around complaining about being unemployed but I was thinking long - term suitability rather than a shorter - term need for bringing in a bit of extra money.

I have seen it reported that fruit and veg is rotting in fields across the country for want of anyone to pick it, so we are trying to import more food from Europe, but there are not enough HGV drivers to do that either.

I love Brexit.

The farms will be because they rely on paying people from other countries far less than anyone in this country would be paid.

not only that but the fact that rural farming areas have less population and seasonal workers literally moved in to work the land.

British people can't move to these areas for minimum wage and have no way of renting homes in the areas at reasonable prices

I was doing some googling for NOS/employment information a few days ago when looking at another thread. I didn't save any links, but a couple of things I did see was that the UK lost about 10 million people after Brexit and 22K of those were from the NHS. The rest are mainly HGV drivers, agricultural workers, carers and hospitality staff. This would seem to fit with the issues that we have atm.
I was listening to a HGV driver yesterday on the radio and he was saying that the average age of a HGV driver now is late 50s, so it is only going to get worse. Covid is only part of the problem.

@Ponoka7

Tesco are offering 8 contracted hours. Iceland between 7-24. That isn't enough to get a decent top up in UC, or enough to live on. There's overtime but they won't contract you for it. It can be safer staying on benefits. My DD is only been given 16-20 hours after being promised a contract for 24. She was on a fill shift 7am-11am. Now that shift is going to 5pm-10pm, she would just about make the last bus. She's having to swap shops. There are shortages, but the gig economy has caused them. That and no forward planning for Brexit and investment in training. We need a benefit change for the under 25s, so them taking a job doesn't impact on HB. By the time they've paid the rent on family home, they might as well not be working. My youngest has just left Pizza Hut to go on agency (race track/concerts) because PH was only giving her 12 hours some weeks, thanks to mismanagement.

Supermarkets are pretty disgusting with the hours they offer. My DS got a job at Tesco and before he got his foot in the door they were only offering two shifts a week- 5am til 9am. Who the hell would wake up in the middle of the night to do a four hour shift that you'd have to take a taxi to because there aren't any buses at that time and it's not safe to walk at that time? I bet the managers wouldn't!

Pay is one issue, but so many people don't want to work evenings or weekends. That's just not possible in many industries.

go back to before Sunday opening and shifts used to be paid at premium in many industries so it was worth while not working 9-5 and night shift back in 1981 at a local factory was £100 extra premium

now companies don't pay this type of premium and so workers don't want to put themselves out for unsociable hours, why should they its not attractive and unsociable

if you want to buy my time to work then you need to make it attractive to me - its got to the stage where if you don't want to make it attractive then you'll not have workers and your business will shut on certain days, as was the restaurants in Cornwall this summer

Haulage is a huge problem. Not just delivering out the goods but also delivering out the parts and components to fix machinery, make products and even the lack of packaging is holding up stock reaching shelves

@gardeninggirl68 I can see how that’s very frustrating, but maybe they are being picky about their hours because they can be. If there’s lots of jobs available? At what point would the business consider upping the rate of pay for weekend work for example? If you can’t recruit, isn’t the onus on you to change your offering, not the other way round? If they’re all students, they won’t be claiming benefits, so they aren’t really under any obligation to take up paid work that doesn’t suit them. Maybe a better offering for a full time position with decent pay and regular, consistent hours, would attract candidates other than students, or is that what you’re offering anyway? If your advertising for someone who is willing to work part-time hours, it’s not surprising you’re only getting students applying.

Unsociable hours......why are they unsociable? Back at the height of covid I had staff not wanting the Saturday evening shift....why? Where were they going? We were in lockdown (essential retailer though) so they couldn't go out anywhere or see anyone anyway!

Are we so hung up on 9-5 being the ideal? Why?