Furlough ending and lots of jobs available

[MLMbotsno]

Ex colleague on furlough since the start moaning that furlough ends and may lose job. Had a whole year of staying at home paid furlough and knew this was a possibility did nothing to train or look for alternative to travel industry role of cabin crew.

Some sectors are calling out for staff but feels since cabin crew not all back should keep being paid. In normal times excess staff are laid off redundancy etc and have to go source another job.
In my opinion furlough has gone on long enough aibu? Cannot pay people to sit around anymore look fir another role.
Yabu furlough should continue for cabin crew etc to wait until sector fully recovers.

Your Phrase "paying people to sit around" is quite telling. I would suggest you count yourself lucky that you were not affected.

You ask why he/she has not retrained. Training suggests either you have the money to re-train, or someone is willing to take you on and train you.

If your income has suddenly been cut to 80% of normal, it is unlikely you will have spare funds to train yourself. Likewise, with 1.5M people still on furlough, other than jobs in sectors such as fruit picking or hospitality, again not likely to be much in the way of training paid for by companies. Why train new people, when we cannot employ the people we DO have?

As an alternative, yes, people can take entry level roles in a different business (the afore-mentioned fruit picking etc.) However, I can understand why people might not want to jump into seasonal or zero-hour work having been in a job with a regular payment schedule.
While I agree that we need to end Furlough sometime, I would suggest that a better way to end it would be to keep it going for two months, but only if the person receiving it can demonstrate that they are actively training for a new role (e.g. IT Project Management, HGV driving etc. ) and that the government would subsidise such training.

Having seen friends who were furloughed (as I was) already on the bread line, having been cut to 80% of salary and struggle more.... I am not sure what they are going to do now when it ends :-(

You are fundamentally right in what you're saying. Unfortunately not all jobs are viable long term and no we can't keep subsidizing them.

But equally I think you could show a bit more empathy. I would find it really difficult to accept that I'm not going back to a job that I trained for, gained experience in and enjoyed doing. Some of these jobs were relatively high status (airline staff) and adjusting to a lower status job is doing to be tough on people.

I'd like to see a lot more money being made available to help people in this position to retrain.

I suppose it depends whether you’re prepared to accept any job to keep finances going, whilst you look for something more suited to your talents and requirements. Or whether you decide to think about alternatives.

You can’t drive five minutes in any direction round here, without saying job vacancies advertised. They probably aren’t the jobs you’d want if you were in an environment like cabin crew I suppose, but the fact of actively looking for work shows employers you’re keen to work.

You have to wonder whether the travel industry will ever be as it once was again, so it might be that those jobs won’t return and people have to find alternatives. I know someone who worked in the travel industry, was made redundant after a period of furlough and has now forged a career in a completely different field.

I'm with you OP. I know too many people on furlough who have been lording it up, some even boasting about being paid to not work.

@WhatdoImean I understand that living on 80% of a wage is difficult and training costs money…but why couldn’t they have taken an entry level job for a few months to pay for their training?
This might sound harsh but claiming that their training has to be paid for by taxpayers when they had more than a year with no work to do is not really fair.

Your colleague and others who are unlikely to be brought back to work may be waiting it out to collect their redundancy payments. For those who have been down to 80% of their salary for the last 18months, redundancy could be a life saver and the only thing getting them through the period to look for a new job. If I'd been in my job for a long time, I'd want my redundancy payout.

It gets overlooked often, but it isn't 80% of full salary, so if you're above the £2,500 cut off the loss of earnings is significant. As a PP mentioned people may not have had the means to retrain.

Furlough absolutely needs to end, but a little empathy towards those who are going to be left up the creek wouldn't go amiss

[quote LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee]@WhatdoImean I understand that living on 80% of a wage is difficult and training costs money…but why couldn’t they have taken an entry level job for a few months to pay for their training?
This might sound harsh but claiming that their training has to be paid for by taxpayers when they had more than a year with no work to do is not really fair.[/quote]
People on furlough are also taxpayers 🙄

I imagine people gave stayed on furlough if they're in an industry like travel so they can get redundancy payment before looking for another job.

I'd be interested to know specifically what training opportunities you think furloughed people should have taken up?

YANBU, furloughers have basically been on paid leave for a year and a half, the party has to end sometime.

I say that as someone who had to work on 80% hours and pay (but still had the same amount of work to do) during the height of the pandemic.

I was speaking to someone the other week, furloughed since the start of all this, has been working elsewhere whilst still getting furlough pay - and whinging that it is ending.

Not all jobs require retraining. Most people still on furlough have had eighteen months to assess their skill set and work out (and apply for) alternative employment paths that their existing skills and experience could be useful for - and the cushion of being paid while they do that.

@Theflamingnerd

Your colleague and others who are unlikely to be brought back to work may be waiting it out to collect their redundancy payments. For those who have been down to 80% of their salary for the last 18months, redundancy could be a life saver and the only thing getting them through the period to look for a new job. If I'd been in my job for a long time, I'd want my redundancy payout.

It gets overlooked often, but it isn't 80% of full salary, so if you're above the £2,500 cut off the loss of earnings is significant. As a PP mentioned people may not have had the means to retrain.

Furlough absolutely needs to end, but a little empathy towards those who are going to be left up the creek wouldn't go amiss

You are allowed to work n another job whilst on furlough though so need not be on 80% 'waiting ' as you say fir redundancy.

You are allowed to work n another job whilst on furlough though so need not be on 80% 'waiting ' as you say fir redundancy

Not necessarily, it was up to individual employers as to whether they allowed workers to take alternative employment while furloughed.

It must have been tough for some people and furlough was really needed, but it’s time for the scheme to end now. It’s been pretty bloody tough for a lot of people who’ve worked throughout!

Most people still on furlough have had eighteen months to assess their skill set and work out (and apply for) alternative employment paths that their existing skills and experience could be useful for

I expect many still on furlough expected or hoped to return to their original job. It may have taken some people a while to realise that wasn’t going to happen.

@Fancymice I know they are also taxpayers, no need for the eyeroll. By asking for the govt to fund their training they are asking every taxpayer to fund it instead of paying for it themselves. So they are asking to pay only a tiny amount (price of training / number of taxpayers) instead of paying for all of it themselves.
I thought it was clear, but apparently not…

What training am I expecting them to do? Well this was in response to the poster who wrote
If your income has suddenly been cut to 80% of normal, it is unlikely you will have spare funds to train yourself so I don’t know, ask them? I understood it as a training for a different career if your previous field is not going to recruit for a while, so really it depends on what every individual is interested into, what they think they could do etc.

And finally I’m not sure to understand what you meant by
I imagine people gave stayed on furlough if they're in an industry like travel so they can get redundancy payment before looking for another job as people were allowed to take another job during their furlough so no impact to redundancy. I know the employer could object to this second job but from what I have read/heard employers allowed it in a large majority of cases.

I suppose OP, that you'd be quick to jump into a role packing frozen poultry in a freezer if you were made redundant from an aviation role.

You are allowed to work n another job whilst on furlough though so need not be on 80% 'waiting ' as you say fir redundancy

I wasn't. Unless it was voluntary, my (now ex, because the factory closed with the loss of 400 jobs), employer told us that we could not have any paid employment within our usual working hours 6am - 6pm as we were still contracted to them for those hours.

I am sure the freebie brigade will be along to tell you that you are cruel for not wanting people to be paid to do nothing even though the economy opened up long ago. The same freebie brigade complains that inflation is on the rise and everything costs more. When you pay people to sit at home and do nothing when there is labour a go shortage, that ls what happens - unchecked inflation.

People who have left it until now and have been sitting around on furlough should quit moaning.

I cannot fathom why people are so nasty about furlough.

No one asked to be put on furlough and these industries took the hit to lessen the impact of covid on the country. I’d be devastated if I now knew that the job I loved and invested many years in was going up the Swanee.

It is sad when anyone loses a job. And its safe to say, if you have lost your job at the end of furlough, unlike in the past you could go elsewhere to do a similar role, the chances are your job isn't viable anywhere and you will have to start again. So easy to say "retrain" but many have been clinging on to the hope of a return to 2019 jobs.

I do think it must have been obvious if you were one of those still on furlough at this point, it was because your job is no longer needed and they were just giving you as long as possible before the inevitable redundancy.

I can understand their reluctance to give up on a career they chose and trained for.

I also think that furlough needs to end. And as a pp said this may lead to a lot of redundancies which at least will help people retrain.

There are going to be an awful lot of painful adjustments over the next few years, not just for those whose jobs have disappeared but perhaps most obviously for them.

This attitude annoys me, why shouldn't people be paid to "sit around & do nothing" if there place of work was ordered to close?

I'd like to see a lot more money being made available to help people in this position to retrain.

This is a good idea, won't happy though.

happen!

This might sound harsh but claiming that their training has to be paid for by taxpayers when they had more than a year with no work to do is not really fair.

But why is it fair that I worked & didn't get a salary cut & have a fairly secure job?

People on furlough are also taxpayers

exactly, & some would have been spending, moving etc i.e all helping to push the economy out if the slump.

YANBU, furloughers have basically been on paid leave for a year and a half, the party has to end sometime.

I'm happy I didn't get a invite to that party.