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.

What a nasty thread this is. Some people showing their true colours.

I cannot fathom why people are so nasty about furlough.

It's illogical, the idea that 9 mill people would not be able to do their jobs & be put onto benefits with little warning without any fuss is ridiculous. The gov wanted to keep people complacent & at home.

Yanbu. There are tons of retail and distribution jobs going. If people pick up these jobs as a stop gap there's nothing to stop them returning to cabin crew later on

@luckylavender

What a nasty thread this is. Some people showing their true colours.

It's not nasty, it's just an opinion that it has been long enough now. I totally supported furlough and think it was one of the best things at the beginning but it cannot go on forever. We don't all have to agree.

@DeepaBeesKit

Yanbu. There are tons of retail and distribution jobs going. If people pick up these jobs as a stop gap there's nothing to stop them returning to cabin crew later on

Exactly. Better to employ people where there are shortages.

You have no idea what your colleague has or hasn’t been doing during this time. He was/is employed, if he had changed employment before now and their had been another lockdown he would not have been eligible to be furloughed and would have no income. There are plenty of jobs about but mostly insecure work. Presumably he would also loose out aim any redundancy if he quit. Sounds like you are just salty that he was at home despite you presumably being in a better position by earning the full 100% of your wage.

@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.

They are BU, if they haven't been unfurloughed by now (let's face it flights have been running for months) it's unlikely they will return to work, they are likely to be made redundant. He or she should have been sensible and did some retraining for aback up plan in the event of redundancy

It's also more complex than the headlines of "millions of jobs available" suggest. There are lots of low paid jobs with bad conditions available for example. Ending of furlough is not necessarily reduce the labour shortages. There's no reason why the cabin crew worker in the OP has to take the fruit picker job.

Agreed. Could of and should of at least been looking to see what transferable skills could lead to. Because we live near Heathrow, I know many many BA staff from school, and many have already found other jobs.

There are jobs available, but most of them are for minimal hours for minimum wage.

A recent job advertised here was four hours per week. That's no use to anyone and for many, the pay would be swallowed up by travel costs and childcare.

Furlough was set up to support businesses through covid impact. Whilst for many areas the economy is up and running again, that is nowhere near the case with the travel industry in UK and Ireland although promising signs. I have sympathy for the cabin crew because maybe they like their jobs and don't want to change career. Conversely the cost of furlough to the country is huge and cannot go on forever.

Firmly on the fence here

I work in the aviation industry. I know at least one airline is keeping all their staff on 80% pay despite furlough ending, mainly because they are already facing being understaffed for the summer 2022 period.

A friend of mine (cabin crew) was made redundant, placed in a hold pool, went to work elsewhere and was offered her job back from the hold, but told she had to start in two weeks and on a six month temporary contract. She took it, because if she didn’t, she’d lose her place in the hold pool and would not be offered her job back when things picked back up. It’s risky, but that’s her career, it’s not just a job.

I’ve never met anyone (pilots or crew) that haven’t loved their job. Anyone in aviation lives and breathes it, it’s your life and identity, not just a job. And unfortunately if you can’t be called back at short notice, you likely won’t be called back at all.

So I fully understand why people hold on to the possibility of going back and don’t ruin their prospects by working elsewhere.

Yes that's another problem, staff need to be retained somewhat so that when they are needed you have them to cope with demand.

They are BU, if they haven't been unfurloughed by now (let's face it flights have been running for months)

No they mostly haven’t, certainly as far as the UK airlines are concerned.

Yes there has been a bit of an upturn in the last few weeks, especially on short haul routes, and most especially on holiday routes but the frequency of flights between most destinations is still massively down on what it was maybe two years.

It’s even worse on many Long haul routes, entry requirements to many places are such that many flights are still carrying belly freight only, no passengers, so often zero requirement for cabin crew.

Looking ahead the likes of BA and Virgin are really still up against it until the States open up fully on a month or so…..so all in all not everybody flying at some UK airlines are going to back at work on anything like a full time roster for quite some time yet.

Given the time it takes to get people trained or requalified the airlines have probably have to try harder than many companies in other industries to hold onto staff, for fear of being shorthanded if demand returns in a hurry - there are more than a few UK airlines trying to do as in Minfilia describes..keeping staff on as long a possible on reduced (sometimes very reduced) T&Cs.

I agree about the point that aviation should be protected. Aviation suffered artificially when travel was shut down. There was and will be demand for travel, and it will become expensive as supply goes down because people are leaving the sector.
For some other sectors though, they have been i decline for a long time and the Pandemic just speeded it up. Anyone working on the high street, for instance, or in a pub had a year to look for an alternative industry. Both areas have been in decline for a couple of decades.

with many people being concerned about global warming, maybe airline traffic will not retunn to prepandemic levels.
There will still be some business travel, but probably less as people realise that a lot of meetings can be covered remotely, and maybe people will now appreciate that they don't have to fly off on holidays and minibreaks every month.

@ThinWomansBrain

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.

Exactly.. furlough should have been ended in June 2020

@choixx

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?

If you're going to take that view, then why is it ever fair that some people have more pay than others? Why is it fair that someone who lost their job right before covid due to a factory moving overseas gets only job seekers, while someone who lost their job 3 months later gets 18 months pay? None of this is fair, and I did have sympathy for those on furlough, especially if only on min wage to start with, but none left now.

I, like many others, had to both work and manage childcare before then being made redundant during the early stages of covid and was left to manage on £74.70 per week and seeking single-parent-friendly jobs that didn't exist, while running down the savings that were meant to be a house deposit. Many self employed people got not even that much.

Anyone without a job after furlough should of course have access to unemployment benefits, but that's enough.

Airlines are not back to normal at all. My DH works for one and has continued to work due to his role but has had to take a forced pay cut. There are less flights running and less passengers flying. One flight he went on last night only had 40 passengers on - the airline would be making a loss on that flight.

@OverTheRubicon but you aren't comparing the same situation. This was millions of people whose jobs were stopped by the government in order to reduce the spread of a virus. They wanted to keep millions of people complacent & at home & they wanted to keep companies & jobs going where possible once things reopened.

Of course the system wasn't perfect & I agree that the SE were hit hard. However in terms of the economy & reducing the spread furlough was a good thing. I can see that despite working the whole time.

Less people flying for business is definitely a possibility but the border closures and traffic light system and testing regimes are the main issues. When they lift a more realistic view of long term impact on business travel can be seen.

I just checked some IATA stats and global flying is 50% of rpks in August 2031 Vs 2019 and that reflects a wide range between countries with China being almost back to normal but the UK still very down year on year.

2021 sorry

This is a bit outing but I am an airport manager for an airline with no flights because our home country has shut its borders. On furlough I got a lot less than 80% of my salary because of the cap. I applied for a few jobs but I'm in my early 60s and I'm sure my age explains why I couldn't even get a minimum wage job. One company told me straight out I was over qualified and they felt sure I would leave as soon as aviation recovered so wouldn't hire me. At 62 my options are limited.

Sorry to hear that @Twentypast