Why are there so many job vacancies??

[Manyanaish]

Where we live businesses are sending fb messages to say that they are having to reduce opening hours due to lack of staff .. they are paying well above minimum wage ( £ 16 ph) , and are doing this to protect staff they have as they are pushed all the time.
the businesses that are sating this locally to us did not rely on pre brexit conditions . So .. what is going on ?

They need people who will live on site really, because as you've found, they're often in remote places so commuting is difficult. Farm work is usually short term, long hours. So a foreign worker may have come for 2-4 months, had free accomodation and food and then returned to their home country to take up seasonal work there.

As a teen, I lived in a farming community (though livestock rather than arable) and I used to do seasonal work hay bailing and rape seed harvesting. It was very unsociable hours 3am type unsociable, but we got very well fed and it was quite good fun. We'd have a huge breakfast at the farm after the first shift then an late lunch in the afternoon. But with tighter (not incorrectly) regulation of child labour there's an increase need for foreign workers.

I've also done fruit picking when traveling, and it's back breaking work. I absolutely hated it. Hats off to those that do it.

I do believe that everyone should receive a decent wage, but I don't think wages are the sole issue here - it's type of work and working conditions. Seasonal farming work and care work. Both thought of very poorly and with terrible working conditions.

Can I work from home?

There was always going to be a period of adjustment while employers get their heads around the fact that they are no longer able to treat employees like shit.

Could you sound more jealous?

People aren't going to die because 3BSHKATS didn't take the job. Don't be so dramatic.
And if you'd quit cos you didn't / couldn't be office based, they'd have replaced you.

It’s literally in the post. It’s 5 days in the office so after all the deductions it’s not worth it for them.

@GasPanic

Exactly. That's why all the well off privileged people spat their dummies out over Brexit and it all got so nasty. People who are used to getting their own way and profiteering from slave labour.

Will I still be around when those unicorns start grazing?

You could ask, I am sure if they are desperate for staff they would be willing to compromise.

It’s called knowing your own value OP

Still waiting on these higher wages....

No, you're probably right and the government will cave into business and let them start importing cheap labour again. Either that or the economy will go down the toilet for various reasons, including all of the brexit disadavantages, and we'll be heading for modern serfdom at an even faster rate.

You have to dream though, right?

I was asked to help with some interviewing last week and not one candidate turned up ! We have re-advertised and no suitable candidates are applying. It's dire. Managers are literally begging colleagues to ask family and friends if they know anyone suitable !

You may be, but it's fairly clear that at least some employers have actually raised their wages when it was clear that the usual threats weren't working any more.

There are two sides to this, some companies have or will relocate to where labour is cheaper and more available. In turn this means less prosperity and opportunities for workers here.

It’s the ones near us that offer lowest wages and are generally rubbish employers - poor shift patterns, no response to applicants etc that struggle.
People vote with their feet.

The race to the bottom - the inevitable end game for capitalism and globalisation. Maybe it would be best to stop playing now, before it's too late.

It's also worth noting the lengthy application process for many jobs especially large companies. Even minimum wage minimum hours contracts require extensive online forms, scenario questions, personality tests etc. before you even get through to interview stage. It is completely bonkers. I get that this is a way of screening people but if you want to hire people that desperately don't ask them to spend half a day filling in forms only for an algorithm to reject them for some obscure reason.

The benefits system rewards people for not working.
I know people who lost their hospitality jobs due to the lockdown, they did not get paid at all despite offering to do literally anything for their employer. Now they have left the industry.
I think people are getting pissed off working all the hours under the sun and what for? So that they can pay others not to work, so that they can’t look after elderly parents, so that they cannot offer child care to their own children. I know quite a few 50 somethings who have retired. None of them regrets it. They want to enjoy their life whilst they are still fit and able.
I don’t earn £16 per hour and I’m not doing an unskilled job. Any chance I have to retire early and I will.

I agree @DontSetYourselfOnFireToKeepOthersWarm but sadly I don't think it will make much difference.

I think In lock down a lot of people realised they were just as well off working 16 -20 hours a week and claiming universal credit . Also raising school leaving age to 18 hasn't helped. Kids can't get part time Saturday work anymore . Plus a lot of over 50s work winter and take summer off . Some jobs pay rubbish for unsociable hours that are all over the place .

This post Brexit higher wages thing. That's very sector/role specific and only tending to be where there are acute shortages. It's also making some businesses unviable either through lack of staff or much higher wages and closing.

I don't expect to see anyone using the higher wages analogy on the 'price hike' threads or moaning that getting a builder, plumber, in fact tradesmen of most types is currently like the Wild West price wise as some of their competition have left.

It isnt necessarily low wages that were the total issue, it's high costs relative to average incomes- with no controls in place , particularly private rents due to lack of social housing, childcare, council tax , utilities , high mortgages in many parts of the country due to ridiculously inflated house prices. People getting into debt just to get by. People needing 2 cars in many non city areas due to poor public transport these days.

I also agree about lack of flexibility from employers.
My boss has a zero flexibility policy. A couple of people applied for a position and would have been great. However my boss would not alter the hours slightly so the post remains vacant.

I dream of a day when my children can enjoy the same benefits of being European that Cruella Braverman did when she was young.

And those companies are not great if they're so desperate to exploit their workers like this.