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 ?

Did you really, because this is the sort of bollocks that always gets trotted out.

It was the same old story on the BNP leaflets delivered in my area. It was outright lies.

It is always 'I used to know someone who said blah blah blah'.

I'm told that they are not allowed to work, but instead live in hotels at taxpayers expense waiting for there to be space on planes to Rwanda.

@wildfirewonder well thanks for simultaneously calling me a liar and BNP.

Why do you feel so threatened by the thought that some people might be playing the system?

This.

I'm returning to the working world after a short career break and am shocked at the job adverts nowadays:

1. Hardly any employer wants to train a newbie/ career changer.
2. 99% of jobs want very relevant experience.

1. As a PP said, job ads have a list of qualifications/skills as long as your arm but the company is paying peanuts.

1. Basically employers are taking the biscuit and looking for a unicorn.

1. 90% of recruiters don't read your profile/CV properly, waste half an hour of your time 'selling' a job to you only for them to ghost you afterwards.

I had one recruiter asking me if I could relocate halfway across the country. Hmm bit difficult with multiple kids in primary school...

I was trained from scratch for my old role a decade ago. Recently it was advertised again and I applied and sat a test for it. There is no way anyone who hadn't done that job before could pass that test.

Seasonal workers are a real issue since Brexit. That is why food is rotting in the fields and why we have a worker shortage in many lower paid/seasonal jobs, plus NHS workers etc.

The immigration figures you are quoting cover:
Ukrainians and other refugees
Students
Workers
Family members
Asylum seekers

Workers are only a proportion of those who enter the country, and they are mostly in skilled roles as otherwise a visa is not granted. Only 40k seasonal worker visas in 2022 - not enough.

Brexit was a massive con.

If there is a flaw or loophole in a system people will exploit it .

I'm not threatened by it. There is some fraud in any system. But a lot of the 'I know someone who knows someone who says they know loads of people from abroad all living in houses at our expense...' is just bollocks.

It's been this way for a couple of years now

Then wages will have to rise in those sectors. The market will resolve the issue by allowing labour where it's needed at the wage required.

Unprofitable businesses will go bust and those workers will be relocated by the market to the businesses that provide goods/services that are in demand.

Brexit really fucked up our workforce

Long Covid taking people out of the workplace, Covid itself made people rethink their careers

The youngsters don’t want to do casual menial jobs they want to be influencers

You said it yourself, it’s roughly the same. You don’t need to be ‘much better off’, if you get the same money to work or not work, people will choose not to work.

I job hunt for a few people who want to change jobs because they are barely above poverty level. There are very few proper full time jobs available. There are lots of job vacancies, but the hours range from 7-20, if you are a single person who owns their own home, you couldn't live on those wages. Don't just look at the job adverts, click into them and read what they want and what they are offering. I'm hoping to job hunt in two years. I'm desperately searching for computer package courses (Microsoft/Excel etc) so I can show that competency, there isn't any. Two of my DD'S got out of retail because the hours wasn't on offer.

It is almost cute you think this will work or will end up OK.

What you are advocating is the country becoming poorer year on year - that was always what Brexit was going to do, and now it is doing it before our eyes.

If you want 'the market' to resolve it, we will have to open back up.

@ThisOldThang ha, ha -having lived in Denmark you are so far off the boil about it will be more like Scandinavia!! I can just imagine saying to lots of the Daily express reading garden centre folks out there- or guys on building sites --ok guys we are going to have a minimum wage of £13 to£14 per hour but tax will go to 46% and a very low personal allowance too. On the bonus side there will be lots of very affordable good quality childcare, good public transport, free higher education, lots of high quality social housing , no council tax, no national insurance, and your shopping will go up about 20% from what it is now.

I can almost see people self combusting now- especially those who own their homes, have no under 18s , don't need or want public transport etc . Scandinavia is still about society ( as is Germany etc) and public good. People still like making cash and have individual aspiration but not at the expense of turning society to shit.

It's getting impossible to get housed without being homeless and going into a hostel if you aren't working in some areas. Once your child turns from be you are hounded to get a job. There's very few Councils giving houses to full benefit claimants, what's made it more difficult is the lack of two bedroomed properties. You can't under occupy.

Employers who expect staff to come into the office five days a week need to think again, we are never going back to that.

There is no evidence for this being a widely-held attitude. Look around you and review the statistics.

This fear that everyone is going to stop working is based on a negative view of humans. Yes some people do bad things - but the reality is most people don't.

People act in their own best interests. Do you seriously think that people are going to bother working if they get zero extra money compared to benefits?

Oops I missed off the fact that both people with children are expected to work and contribute- hence why there is so much good cheap childcare. Lots of jobs start quite early (breakfast clubs) but finish at 4pm. You get good maternity conditions but the expectation is you will be back at work- in the centre I worked in most of the women had small children and I saw very little toddler age activity stuff advertised locally- presumably because they were all at nursery. It's a very different mindset .

Have you seen the price of fruit in Japan? How about Norway?

Wages are going to have to rise and prices are going to have to rise or the jobs won't get.

Or, as is more likely to happen as wages rise, farming will become much more widely done using robots.

Brexit

You really should not judge everyone by your own standards!

Look at the evidence. Most people of working age work.

Very few people do get 'zero extra money' other than where childcare is factored in. This is why childcare should be treated as a national priority.

Somebody a while ago posted a screenshot of a universal credit estimate based upon a family of four with one person earning minimum wage. The benefits entitlement brought the household income up to the equivalent of earning £55k. That's more than a teacher at the 'maximum scale' in inner London.

Do you not see how that can result in a 'there's no point trying' attitude?

What would you prefer to do - teach full time, with all the associated out-of-hours work and stress or work your exact 35 hours in a coffee shop (and be better off than the teacher).

What message does that send to young people?

I think you're deluded.