The job market is the worst it's been in my memory?

[deeleyj]

Aibu to think the job market is the worst it's been in my memory?

It's brutal out there.

I feel completely stuck in a job I hate because a) there's not much out there b) companies I fancy are making constant cuts c) the jobs that are there pay half what I'm on now d) each job that's left has about 100 applicants e) hiring freezes in my industry

Will it ever get better? Or is this it? Is this a knock on from Covid? Or AI?

I'm feeling really awful about it and just feel completely stuck. People around me saying I should be grateful. All my mates in my company have been made redundant over the last year. I'm just keeping my head down.

It's not just my sector. My town had a huge employer and used to employ half the town. I just searched their website, not a single open role.

I read a story the other day about a lady applying for a dentistry degree, straight A student... didn't get a place as there just isn't the funding or places available.

I swear it's never been this bad and i just can't see it getting better

Well, there’s your answer. These jobs are in London.

Interesting because my experience and anecdotally from friends, is that we can't recruit across all roles.

I've just tried to fill a £120k job and had to do it on an interim basis, after two rounds of advertising and no really suitable candidates. DS works for a coffee chain and they can't get people despite paying above minimum wages and a friend has spent the week interviewing for entry level banking jobs and has candidates, but no one he wants to appoint.

A couple of million employees working fully or mainly remotely isn't 'rare', which was the term used.

12.5% at any one time isn't a quarter 8.7 previously doesn't mean at once or long running. For the general population getting a remote working job was nothing like as easy as it has been since COVID

My work (I’m a contract EA/PA) has been hit hard recently.

Yes, there’s work but it’s been harder to find and companies and even government where I do work too are picky.

I want to retrain to do something completely different and have actually changed my mind completely recently.

Permanent work is harder to come by because in my experience people are staying in jobs and not leaving and more people want to do this sort of work. Doesn’t help when everyone and his dog also think they can do what I can (they probably can to be fair).

You've moved the goalposts.

You said remote working pre covid was rare. It wasn't. The ONS numbers show that beyond doubt. There were millions of people doing it in 2019.

It was harder to work remotely in 2019 than it is now, but nobody disputed that.

Pedantic....can you find the definition of rare

Plenty of teaching jobs in secondary schools

I think what a lot of people really mean is "I can't find a job where I don't leave the house and get to wear my dressing gown all day." 🤣

Luckily, the Oxford English Dictionary have got there for me.

https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=rare

And it's not pedantic to point out that what you said was wrong. The fact is that there was already a trend in the 2010s towards more remote working. Covid massively accelerated something that was already very much in existence. This actually is pretty important when we're talking about the changes in the job market over the past few years.

Feel the same as you OP. it's depressing.

I'm also told I "should be grateful"

But I think if you're struggling to recruit then you're probably not paying enough, or people think they can get a better deal elsewhere (e.g. less stress, more interesting work).

For example, you site the £120,000 role, but maybe the calibre of staff you're looking for are being paid £150,000 elsewhere.

I regularly see jobs advertised in my sector for my role wanting 3 days a week in office, for two-thirds of what I'm getting paid. I don't see jobs advertising for more than I'm being paid.

There are SO many jobs out there, I don't think I would struggle to find another if I needed to. Part of the problem is people's expectations have changed.

I think that's true of a lot of roles. Not in every sector, and evidently not in OPs. But some sectors are just fishing in a pretty shallow pond, without enough bait.

a friend has spent the week interviewing for entry level banking jobs and has candidates, but no one he wants to appoint. The government wants to dump a whole lot of people with depression on the job market. I wonder who will want to employ them?

This is 100% true - the reality of the "skills shortage" is "we can't get brilliantly skilled and trained staff at the fucking awful salaries we need to pay to make sure top execs keep getting double digit rises every fucking year"

There's also going to be a HUGE new life sciences hub in Whitechapel around the Royal London:

I know it's anecdotal, but I have been pretty much 100% remote working since 2013.

What's wrong with all the applicants? Too old? Too expensive?

I've had the same thought! We don't seem to hear from a lot of employers who are desperate to be able to recruit people who've historically not been able to hold down a job. It's just an assumption that a warm body in a job will be sufficient.

I don't dislike my job, but I don't like my manager. Unfortunately I'm stuck with them until either they get fed up and leave or I go on maternity leave. The latter not likely given my infertility issues. We're in a hiring freeze at the moment and the company had a major restructure in January last year due to, well, nobody keeping an eye on the finances. Imo it doesn't help that you have to have a degree now. I'm lucky in that I accrued years of experience and cross-departmental training in the earlier years at my job. I don't have a degree, although my role requires one, but oodles of experience suffices as well.

The fact is most people before COVID didn't get the option then they were dumped in it and don't want to come out. Most normal office jobs were not remote. If the average employee decided to be remote it was rare that they could find something, argue as much as you like but most people are not in managerial, speciality jobs and for them it was a rare chance.

Yeah but Covid DID happen. And society moves forward.

Why do we have to stay with the old structure? Why was that better?

It’s interesting that posters have mentioned a change in the last year. I have been freelancing for some time and thinking to go for a regular job again.

I’m also under the impression that there has been a drastic change recently and I presume it is to do with technology and AI replacing roles.

I was just “keeping an eye” in the last year because there was a lot going on in my life.

Now that I am ready to look for salaried positions (by which I mean I have freelance projects to complete, so I wouldn’t be able to do an immediate start on anything) I’m seeing a lot less now than I did last year.

From about January to April 2023, my sister said that she’d more headhunting calls than she’d ever had in her life.

I don’t know what happened, but it’s like there was a surge of activity, and now it’s stopped.

Indeed. Last week, I came across a local job of "finance assistant", wage listed as £11.44 per hour, the legal minimum for an employee aged over 21. So, entry-level role, yes?

Job requirements: Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
Prior experience in a finance or accounting role preferred.