To think talk of people having to find better paid jobs unrealistic?

[vinoinveritas]

I have heard a lot of politicians and people generally in the media etc talk about how people need to find better paid jobs to cope with the rising cost of living. Am I alone in finding this frankly unreasonable and unrealistic ? Some of us have got limited means to retrain! Training costs time and money. I am currently working full time in a public sector role where there has been a pay freeze for 7 years!! My family commitments mean I can’t just get any job with evening hours etc as I wouldn’t be able to pay the childcare.

I look at Job ads and just do not see many highly paid roles advertised, particularly in my area (rural midlands). My father told me I chose the wrong sector and should find a job in finance. He knows I’m rubbish with numbers (just passed GCSE maths with a grade C) and moving job sector in your 40’s-50’s isn’t straightforward. I’d probably have to take a pay cut initially which would put me back at square one!

Absolutely, I love my line of work and I'm on a good wage for my sector, but it's a perpetually underfunded sector so there's limited directions I can go in to earn more apart from more senior management level which actually would remove me from using my skill set which is what I most enjoy in my job.

Of course.
MN is a bit of an exception because you have quite a few mothers of young children doing a lower paid job or fewer hours than they might be able to to fit in with family life.
Outside of this group most of us can't do a better paid job because if we could we already would be!
Of course if there was a job for my skill level that paid more, don't you think I would have applied already?

I agree with you OP, not everyone can just walk into a better paid job, most of us need additional training to improve our positions and standard of living, and not too many people with family and a home to run, have the time and energy to study after a full day's work.

Lots of low paid jobs are essential to society e.g. carers. If all carers left to get better paid jobs we'd be screwed. The government didn't think this through. But it's a good way to blame people for being poor, so maybe they did.

Wildly unrealistic.

Depends on so many factors:

Where you live
What transport you have available to you
What skills you have
What qualifications you have
What prior experience you have

But its also monumentally wrong - it suggests that there are either, so many people not being paid enough for the work they do, that our country is in financial crisis...

Or that there are so many jobs out there that need not actually exist, as clearly, no one should be doing them as its not enough money to live on..

And really, regardless of which of those is true (and I think we all know which one it is), thats what needs addressing.

Telling people to go get a better job is offensive, and not a solution to the problem any more than telling people to stop being disabled, stop being old, stop being a child, stop being in poverty yadda yadda.. would be.

I absolutely love my job as a Band 3 HCA (top of scale). Progression for me would be to retrain as a nurse. However I will be 50 next month, would be nearly 54 when I qualify and only earn £1.29 per hour more than I am now for the first 2 years after qualifying, not to mention the responsibilities I would have and registration fees i would need to pay. It's hardly incentivising me to change careers.

Well there's an easy for teachers, nurses and other healthcare/emergency services/essential public sector workers to get a better paid job, and that way will probably go a long way towards solving the recruitment crisis too.....

It is blaming bullshit and I am sick of this government

We have a low wage economy, living standards are below other European nations, this was a political choice made by the Tories when they decided to cut rather than invest after 2010. Wages have stagnated for twelve years.

Some people could probably leave their roles and find higher wages - but overall we need people to be e.g. bus drivers, carers, nursery nurses, teaching assistants, cooks, cleaners, retail staff - all of these jobs pay too little.

Then look at jobs above the bottom tier - nurses, teachers, police are all paid too little to pay their bills these days. Do we want them to leave too?

We need an election. We need a proper investment strategy.

Mostly yanbu

BUT i do know quite a few people who've actively chosen to either a) work very part time or b) in very basic low paid work, because they have kids and their husband til now earned just enough for them to manage, with benefit top ups. I don't mean with little kids where the childcare is prohibitive. I mean taking as long as possible off with kids and then when they are older, husband disagreeing with them remaining a housewife as they would prefer, so reluctantly earning just enough "pin money" to cover their individual spending get husband off their back while husband pays mortgage, bills & everything else.

I know a lot of women in this position.

YANBU, obviously. Do they reckon that people will go “ooh, I didn’t think of that!” and rush off to retrain (with all the time and expense that entails)? Silly politicians.

Are there people in your work who earn more than you do? Could you work your way into their roles?

I'm finding all these well-paid roles come with catches. eg, fixed term only or no real job longevity. My last job interview for 26k was a 12-month fixed term. Just seeing loads more jobs as fixed term.

The best you could do with that is to stash some money away each month?

Yes, I'm sure the person manning the till or stacking the shelves at your local supermarket, or working for minimum wage at some soul destroying job, because they've never had the opportunity to do anything else, think it's a brilliant idea when they hear this from some dim politician.

No doubt they'll all immediately down tools and find themselves high flying well paid jobs.

Makes me furious every time I hear this sort of BS, it's usually from a politician, and it's a sure fire indication that they're completely out of touch with normal people's lives, living as they are way up there in their ivory tower.

There are routes to earning more money though without leaving to find a “high flying career.”

Most people working on a checkout will be capable, with effort and planning, of becoming a supervisor at work, a shift manager or even a department manager, all of which bring increased salary.

It's ridiculous advice because some people aren't in a position to find a better paid job, they would if they could.
It's also another way of saying that people who do your current job (Care work? Cleaning? Teaching assistant?) deserve to live in poverty.
It's strange which jobs are valued, and which are not.

They might be but the hierarchy in these types of jobs will always be bottom heavy. Not everyone can be a manager or supervisor. And the pay increase in most cases in negligible.

Its all bullshit. If you love being a carer, for example, you should be able to make enough money to survive doing that job full time. It's a much needed and important job. At the moment benefits and charity are the only thing stopping mass strikes and protesting.

Yes, most people will be capable of improving their situation through promotion but they can just decide to become a supervisor or shift manager at the drop of a hat, regardless of how much they might want it. They have to wait until vacancies arise.

The people offering the 'advice' to get a better paid job aren't talking about promotion prospects they're just saying 'people should go out and find better paid work'; it's nonsense.

But given how few people in these jobs do work to move up, them being bottom-heavy isn’t a huge impediment to those who do want to.

I also don’t accept that there is a “should” argument around pay. That only works in a strict command economy, and those invariable reduce wages and quality of life severely.

Nonsense how, though? How many people are genuinely currently at the maximum that they are able to earn?

Some are, certainly, but I don’t believe that it’s anywhere near the majority.

I’m public sector and the salary is abysmal - however it’s low-touch and requires little effort. I’m extremely well qualified for something else, but I have health I issues and frankly I’m hitting the sweet spot with top-up benefits.

were I to take the fancy job I’d burn out in weeks and be very little financially better off. 🤷‍♀️ I’m too old to care.

So do some people really think that some essential jobs are so menial that the people doing them don’t deserve to earn enough to eat and keep warm? ( and yet entertainers and footballers deserve to be super rich)?

All the low paid jobs need to be done by someone. How will all the lawyers and bankers be able to earn their worthy salaries if there’s no one working for less to care for their children? Wages need to rise; that’s the reality.

I also don’t accept that there is a “should” argument around pay. That only works in a strict command economy, and those invariable reduce wages and quality of life severely.

I don't disagree and I dont think the solution is for massive government intervention. But currently the government is having to step in and subsidise pay. Remove benefits and help from charities and the pay would have to go up and/or whole sectors would collapse.

I think it is ridiculous in some situations but valid in others. If you have someone.on 17k, they can usually get better paid job.
Many places hire remotely now and pay 20k+.

It REALLY depends on the situation

It can be but not always. Under employment, that is working less than full time despite no caring responsibilities or disability is common - you read it hear on Mumsnet, people working the hours to maximise benefits/minimise childcare/maximise paid work balance. Also uc doesn't demand you job hunt over a certain number of hours.

Many complex , sometimes valid reasons not just being feckless I would add.