Labour have ruined the job market

[Needajobforspouse]

My spouse was made redundant in November, has done some bid work since then (e.g zero contract parcel delivery) but not enough to make up his old salary. He has job alerts and this week there was ZERO jobs advertised that meet his qualifications.

Nobody is hiring.

I work for an SME, and I am also at risk and in bad health. Not enough for PIP etc but enough to make me unreliable (recently diagnosed as immunocompromised).

Not even the local supermarket is hiring, and they won’t touch my DH anyway as he is massively over qualified (I know a supermarket manager and they don’t take on over qualified people as they are “hard to manage” and don’t stay long term.).

yesterday our car broke and we used the last of our savings for a new one, my roof is leaking. My bay window is leaking and I just feel like giving up.

just dreading this year of shitty government policies that pick on the middle income earners and penalise us, is this life? Because if so I hate it.

also where are all the jobs?! Literally zero here in northern England.

Agree entirely

I'm not sure if others want her out but KS is responsible so he's trying to keep them both in

I'm not a Labour supporter but the state of the economy is due to the Tories who spent 14 years fucking it up
There are jobs in some places. I am also not entirely sure about your partner being over qualified for supermarket work (it possibly depends what supermarket because when I worked in one my manager said it was rubbish about people being over qualified). So maybe your partner should try a different supermarket.
Or retrain if there's something they'd rather do. With regards to PIP when you fill the form in you are supposed to use examples and times from a day you are suffering, not a good day. So if on a bad day it takes you an hour to dress that's what you put down. Most people don't know that which is why they miss out on payment when they should get it. Of course if you did that already then it's just a shit system.
Hope things improve.

Same here.

They do from April…since the tax on employment lowered the threshold for employees NI as well as increasing the rate. A mind numbingly stupid act, showing a complete lack of understanding of the cost drivers of business.

If you’re in the care business, and people cost is two thirds of your cost base and you operate at a 5 or 6% net profit margin (optimistic…) then a 10% increase in employment tax (employers NI) completely wipes out all profit. Repeat across hospitality, retail, manufacturing and it’s easy to see how the Government has collapsed consumer and business confidence so comprehensively and quickly.

You still need to “balance the books” to some extent
Its no good saying you are going to get in £X billion with tax rises and are going to spend £Y billion if the reality is you have committed to spend £Y billion and but only get in a small fraction of the £X billion you thought you were going to raise and to avoid paying the £Xbillion in taxes businesses make tens of thousands of people redundant, cut down on or stop hiring people, or close down and the benefits bills goes up

I thought it was common knowledge that if you reduce taxes you raise more money paid in taxation than raising taxes ever does

I thought it was common knowledge that if you reduce taxes you raise more money paid in taxation than raising taxes ever does

Only so far… if you reduce tax rate to zero, you obviously get zero as described by the Laffer curve.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

There’s a sweet spot in the middle where it’s maximised… though the system is a dynamic and multidimensional one so it’s always quite as simple as that.

But you wouldn't reduce/zeroise ALL taxes. If, say, you reduced income tax, people would have more to spend, so the government would rake in more in VAT and other indirect taxes.

It's exactly why there are tax havens - the Islands/countries charge a much reduced tax rate (some very low %ages, some fixed amounts etc)., but they get the rich people/companies into their country/island buying property, spending money, buying goods & services, etc.

IHT is a classic example. 40% is far too high a rate. That kind of high rate encourages avoidance tactics which is why so many people "plan" to avoid IHT. Since RR's Budget, we've never been busier with clients wanting IHT planning and we don't even have any farming clients. It's ALL to do with her bringing pensions into scope of IHT. Loads of people who were previously under the exemption threshold are now over it, lots of people just over the threshold with IHT liabilities of a few thousand or a few tens of thousands (which was acceptable to them as costs to plan to avoid would be higher) are now facing IHT liabilities of a hundred or two hundred thousand and are now well into the realm of paying specialist IHT consultants for planning options to eliminate their IHT liabilities.

I had one last week. We'd done IHT forecasts a couple of years ago and she (her estate) was looking at a IHT liability of anywhere between £zero and £50kdepending on asset values etc - she was happy to accept that and didn't want to engage a IHT consultant at a cost of £10-£20k to set up trusts etc. After RR's budget changes, her forecasted IHT liability is now around quarter of a million, so she's just instructed IHT consultant to set up trusts and so HMRC will get nothing as long as she doesn't die before it's all set up and activated. So HMRC may have potentially got maybe £50k IHT but will now get nothing. Slow handclap for RR!

I agree you wouldn’t reduce all taxes… but it’s a complicated as you suggest. Reducing income taxes would increase other taxes such as VAT, and even income tax is people earn more because the cut led to a boost to the economy… Reduce certain taxes in an unfocused way though and you risk ending up with higher inflation if there’s not a commensurate boost in production and productivity… ie increase in money supply exceeds the ability of the economy to expand to absorb it.

I don’t think you understand the sheer cliff fall that has happpened in the job market.

Even under 14 years of Tory rule there were still jobs out there in hospitality and retail

Now there isn’t.

Last year I was working a minimum of 15 days per month and this year it is at the most going to be 4 days per month. (Booking work in for April). Even if things do pick up I have been told that around 4 or 5 days per month is all I am going to be doing for the foreseeable future, either that or I can work when there is work but as soon as I hit earnings of £5000 then I won’t work till next April

Was booked in for or was expecting to do about 30-40 days work between Christmas to now. I have done 4 days
Companies cancelled there bookings so no bookings = no work.

As for PIP. My friend struggles to walk. She has extensive disabilities. They said No. It took her a year to get to court where the judge took one look at her and awarded her the highest level PIP

Do you really believe you fill out a form and explain how bad your disability is and they say Yes. If you are suffering from a disability then the last thing you want to do is fight for what should rightfully be yours

Friend found out at some point that the interviewer for PIP had lied when reporting back the interview answers she gave

I am basing this on experience. Perhaps I have been lucky but when filling in forms for my DD, or helping my mum and MIL when we based it on a bad day as advised we had no problem securing PIP
The forms don't say tell us about your worst day but this is what they expect
I was just offering a bit of advice based on personal experience so I think I probably do know more about the system than you think.

Another bullshit post from a MNer who knows less than fuck all about the realities of running an SME or micobusiness.

@Babadookinthewardrobe haha yes economically illiterate, not emotionally illiterate. It's been a long few days!

@Cupcakes2035 this isn't about wages it's about employers' NICs

true, but they still need profits to survive as a business

@Yalta can you share some evidence of this cliff edge & lack of jobs because the data says we've still got very low unemployment and higher than usual vacancies?

I'm struggling to understand why so many people think it's much worse than the data says.

The data is out of date as it is done by quarters

If you look at January as a stand alone month there are so many articles about how bad the job market is and blaming it on the extra cost of employing people.

I work through agencies in hospitality (corporate events)
Last January it was work the whole month without a day off. This January was going to be a little quiter. But then came the Budget. I worked only 4 days. The number of cancellations was unprecedented.

I forecast it will get worse as the year goes on. Once people have earned their allowance then I can see the benefits agency starting to get over run with people who have no chance of getting another job for the rest of the tax year as they are too expensive to employ

I am recruiting for a basic living wage position and got 25 applications in 3 days. People are desperate for work. We are replacing someone who is moving on, so not expanding.

We are a tiny business and have already made another redundant. We are on our bare bones until this government reduces the stranglehold on small business. Hopefully we can tread water until then. Expanding seems like a pipe dream with no extra cash to play with.

@Yalta the ONS data in January vacancies are down a slight bit but still in line with pre-pandemic?

There's an Indeed report which highlights subdued postings but is clear it isn't seeing any crash since the budget:

"However, the level of postings hasn’t crashed since the Budget announcement on 30 October. Rather, they have remained stable, dipping only marginally since Budget day, when postings were 13% below baseline. That’s true even for sectors including hospitality and retail, which are expected to be hit hardestst*_ by the policy changes. Food service and retail postings have actually risen slightly over the period."

www.hiringlab.org/uk/blog/2025/02/03/january-labour-market-update-undeniably-weak/

The data seems to show the biggest contraction is in hybrid and work from home roles. I suspect that's due to more companies looking to move back to offices or at least being wary of telling applicants they'll be able to wfh in case policy changes. This is causing more people to stay in roles where the balance is good as it's too much risk to move or roles are all saying they need many more days in offices. It's stalling the job market a bit.