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.

But you can’t be both redundant and receiving furlough. Once you’re redundant, furlough ends. Which is probably why companies are holding out as long as possible before taking that step.

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 true for every job, it depends on what your contract states. At work ours said if you take another job you lose furlough and will be more likely to be made redundant before others.
This happened to several employees.

It was better for me to be on my 80% and be able to pay my bills and just about eat than risk not having anything to return to. I didn’t sit around though, I made sure to be busy everyday to stop being bored and judged by people like you saying we all just sat around.

YANBU, completely agree OP - what did some people think was going to happen?

Why would anyone sit around waiting for redundancy?? Surely furlough was the best chance to get out and prepare. Yanbu.

I think it's time to let unviable business / jobs go now. Society has given people on furlough their best shot. As for 80% I pay a good 15% of my income on transport and more on childcare, so I don't think they've done badly at all.

Why would anyone sit around waiting for redundancy?? Surely furlough was the best chance to get out and prepare. Yanbu

What…really?

I mean I’m not saying I wouldn’t be looking around or doing some training etc. But if I’d been with my employer for several years and was due a decent redundancy payment what would I have to lose by waiting it out?

Cannot pay people to sit around anymore

I agree it’s time for furlough to end but isn’t this essentially what happens with all the people who can work but claim benefits. MN can be very double standards!

For the travel industry, furlough shouldn’t end until international travel is fully open. We still have vast numbers on the red list, many without justification to be there.

If your friend loves travel, has a career in travel and will continue to have a career in travel once things reopen then why should they retrain and do some they don’t necessarily like or are suited to just because the government has chosen to not support the one industry still shut

I think it's time to let unviable business / jobs go now.

So we leave airport terminals shut, planes grounded and accept that long haul travel to Africa, South America, most of Asia is unviable now and we just let it go?

I would work in any job I could if it paid the bills and kept a roof over my head-even if it wasn’t the one I trained for. Life is unpredictable. If it hadn’t been COVID it could have been something else. Time for furloughed staff to start looking at other jobs if they can’t go back to their previous role-it’s been too long paying furlough and we’re already all going to be paying back the bill for many years to come.

Seems crazy to keep it going when there are so many vacancies across many industries to keep paying people in sectors that might not recover for a long time.

@MarbleRunaway

I think it's time to let unviable business / jobs go now.

So we leave airport terminals shut, planes grounded and accept that long haul travel to Africa, South America, most of Asia is unviable now and we just let it go?

I don’t think exactly that will happen because I’m not quite sure those keen on the demise of the aviation industry have really thought this through ….

I suspect if one or two major UK airlines go under, maybe because of Uk government action or inaction, most if not all the movement slots they lose at places like Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester will be gobbled up by foreign airlines many of whom are or have received support from their own governments, many of whom are now not quite so hamstrung with Covid regulations and restrictions on international travel as the Uk continues to be.

That means most likely European, American operators and/or the ME3 will step in to serve Uk airports by extending their route networks ..good news for foreign airlines and their employees, good news for Brits who still want to travel, bad news for those who thought they were headed for a quiet life.

In the meantime another x thousand skilled jobs will have gone from Britain, along with the associated NI and income tax contributions from many relatively high earners….

But seeing as recent events have shown some in a position of influence in the UK don’t really understand logistics/the transport industry I guess anything is possible.

@PixieLaLa

Cannot pay people to sit around anymore

I agree it’s time for furlough to end but isn’t this essentially what happens with all the people who can work but claim benefits. MN can be very double standards!

Who are 'all the people who can work but claim benefits'? Disability is not easy to claim, single parents are looking after children then expected to go back to work, and job seeker allowance is a pittance. Healthy pensioners might qualify, though they'd argue they've paid in too. A huge number of benefits claimants in this country are actually in work. You could argue that the middle classes claiming tax free childcare are the same.

Even if on benefits and not working, people are still going to be far worse off than someone who has been on furlough at up to £2500 a month for 18 months, while accruing pension and other benefits. It doesn't make sense any more.

@PixieLaLa

Cannot pay people to sit around anymore

I agree it’s time for furlough to end but isn’t this essentially what happens with all the people who can work but claim benefits. MN can be very double standards!

Yes to be honest, furlough wasn’t self inflicted. Unlike the scores of threads on here where women who choose to keep having babies with feckless men and then complaining that benefits are not sufficient. So MN does show double standards in that respect.

@BitterTits

I think it's time to let unviable business / jobs go now. Society has given people on furlough their best shot. As for 80% I pay a good 15% of my income on transport and more on childcare, so I don't think they've done badly at all.

I work for a major international airline with no flights because our home country's borders are closed. Would that be considered an unviable business?

I'm about to start indefinite unpaid leave until we have flights again. And furlough pay was a lot less than 80% for me due to the cap. I couldn't even get a job stacking shelves because people saw my CV and said I was overqualified and would leave as soon as travel started up again.

I don't think travel will reach the same levels for a long time, a big chunk I doubt will ever return- a lot of businesses are staying online rather than flying staff around for meetings, both domestically and internationally. The industry needs to adapt, obviously the borders is the biggest issue, but how long do the government stay at the mercy of the decisions of other countries re: travel?

i couldn't even get a job stacking shelves because people saw my CV and said I was overqualified and would leave as soon as travel started up again

Lots of those on furlough had these kind of jobs, you didn't get the job as you weren't the best candidate.

@Twentypast - if a job spec asks for customer skills and basic English and maths for a job in retail, is there any point in listing lots of higher qualifications?

Agencies offer temporary work, they might be worth a try? Also, the Royal mail is recruiting for seasonal sorting office jobs, that would help until Christmas?

[quote Seymour5]@Twentypast - if a job spec asks for customer skills and basic English and maths for a job in retail, is there any point in listing lots of higher qualifications?

Agencies offer temporary work, they might be worth a try? Also, the Royal mail is recruiting for seasonal sorting office jobs, that would help until Christmas?[/quote]
The problem is my CV, I can try to make me look less senior but I'm Director level and have had Director in my job title for the last 4 jobs.
I didn't know about RM. Thanks, I'll check out the website.

”I don't think travel will reach the same levels for a long time,”

(Warning long post).

It may look like it from the UK (and maybe NZ and Oz) ATM but I suspect it’ll get close to 2019/20 levels much quicker than some people think (and possibly quicker than some would like).

US domestic air travel has recovered strongly in the last few months and US international carriers have benefitted by the ability of US nationals to travel abroad to the likes of many European countries with fairly minimal restrictions…

EU carriers have seen an upturn, fueled in part by the EU vaccine pass allowing easy travel into/out of some EU nations..I live in the EU and our local airport’s traffic levels have recovered significantly in the last couple of months or so, plenty of flights now back on the arrival departure boards.

The exception though is flights to/from the UK which are still very thin on the ground..and there’s the problem for anybody working for a UK based airline.

The UK airlines are still majorly clobbered by the UK restrictions, which potentially effect demand on every flight into or out of their home base and also in the case of BA and Virgin the US entry restrictions.

The US restrictions are supposed to be reduced in a month or so and isn’t the UK system meant to be simplified shortly?

Given those events it looks like there’s going to be a month or more’s gap between furlough ending and the UK airlines being able to judge how well/how fast their business will recover. Do they keep people on, or layoff and potentially be disadvantaged by a lack of staff when the upturn arrives?

Having worked in the industry I have a fair degree of confidence there will be a recovery and I can also fully understand why airline staff on furlough won’t have handed in their notice so they can go off and find other lines of work..

@Tinpotspectator

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.

I think that if the difference was feeding your kids or not and you had an iota of personal pride, you'd do any fucking job rather than sponge off of the taxpayer.

And you know what - we need poultry, we don't need holidays in Malaga....

Back in 2020 there were numerous threads whinging about how those pesky furloughed workers were taking 2nd jobs. "it's not faiiiiiir, they're taking my overtime" cried some, "greedy money grabbing bastards" said a few more, "why should my taxes subsidise them when they are working?" , others chipped in and so on and so forth. Other's, like now posted about how "those pesky furloughed people should be out working not sitting around, lazy bastards. I'm not paying taxes to subside their year long holiday".
So which is it? Those furloughed are greedy for getting a 2nd job or lazy because they didn't....or maybe it's the 3rd option, that some who have not been furloughed just get some kind of kick out of making people feel guilty about a situation the furloughed had no control over?

@Robotbot

i couldn't even get a job stacking shelves because people saw my CV and said I was overqualified and would leave as soon as travel started up again

Lots of those on furlough had these kind of jobs, you didn't get the job as you weren't the best candidate.

I'm sure I wasn't best candidate. I've never worked in a supermarket (fully prepared to learn though) and as soon as people saw I was a senior director at an airline I was discounted for most minimum wage job.

Some airline employees think they are above waitresses, shelf stacking, caring, etc., the jobs that have vacancies . However, it's not dissimilar to popping hand luggage above the seats, serving tea, coffee and ready meals, showing passengers the toilets or way in and out, similar skill set really. A bit harder work and on the ground but if you have bills to pay?

@REDHERO

Some airline employees think they are above waitresses, shelf stacking, caring, etc., the jobs that have vacancies . However, it's not dissimilar to popping hand luggage above the seats, serving tea, coffee and ready meals, showing passengers the toilets or way in and out, similar skill set really. A bit harder work and on the ground but if you have bills to pay?

Not all airline employees are flight attendants you know. Usualky less than 30% of an airline employee are cabin crew. Many employees never go near passengers, baggage or even an airport unless they're travelling.