To think it is not that easy to 'get a better job'

[EuclidianGeometryFan]

Seen a few threads lately about people with money issues, and on low wages or minimum wage.
Then some posters say things like 'why haven't you got a promotion in the last X years?' 'Why don't you re-train / upskill?' 'Why don't you get a better job?'

As if anyone stays in a minimum wage job for years just for the fun of it!

The job market is a pyramid - there is not enough room on the higher levels for everyone. Even as you age you can't automatically expect to climb the ladder and move up - the maths don't stack up. Not every field of work has a 'career ladder'.
Some people are stuck on minimum wage or not much more, for life. They may not have the ability or skills or aptitude to re-train or get promoted, let alone the time and energy.

It smacks of blaming the OP for not being ambitious enough. Some posters seem to have no conception of what life and the job market is like for minimum wage workers.

Mwah, I did a degree in a vocational subject and was told I was too old by someone high up in the profession. This appeared to be true as I didn't get a training job unlike the boys, despite a better class of degree.

Your face does need to fit and I've never really managed to get a "good job".

Indeed. I studied with the OU years ago (around 2010) and the fees were very reasonable, a few hundred a year. One year I didn’t earn much and actually got a £250 grant.

The fees are now in the thousands, according to Google a part-time degree is around £3k. I know you can get a student loan but not everyone wants to do that. Some may also have a degree that hasn’t been useful in their career and not able to get another loan to re-train.

Yes, but everyone who doesn't already have a degree can get their fees covered by a student loan, and those on a low income receive a maintenance loan too and it's repaid prorata to what you earn, so if you want to improve your standard of living, why wouldn't you take the loan? If you're on a low income and that doesn't improve following the qualification, you'll never repay it anyway.

Progressing by moving jobs and companies is riskier - leaving a situation you know, having to start again without the being in a job for two years redundancy pay boost, often getting inferior conditions if you do move jobs, I can see why some aren’t prepared to do that. Especially if they have caring commitments. But not taking up training opportunities at work to upskill is madness.

My brother has a warehouse job on minimum wage. He’s in his 40s with a family and many times has been offered training for promotion - he always refuses because he doesn’t want what he sees as the hassle. He doesn’t enjoy being broke but being broke doesn’t motivate him to work more. Some people are just like that. It’s not always - or even usually - that the opportunity isn’t there.

I didn’t know that about the maintenance loan @Sunspecs . I don’t think it was available through the OU when I studied. I never went to uni the traditional way.

It's definitely available for part time study, I just checked.

That’s great for your friend, but she must have a bit of intellect about her if she’s undertaking social work qualifications. Many people just aren’t cut out for that.

My DSSis worked in care on nmw, then ‘upskilled’ herself by completing her level 3 NVQ and worked as a senior for the grand total of an extra 50p an hour. But she really wanted to go into nursing. She eventually began training to be a nurse, but couldn’t hack the assignments. She just isn’t bright enough. She’s working as a HCA now but she’ll never progress higher than that.

It’s similar in loads of low-paying fields like retail, hospitality or call-centres. You might get a promotion to team leader but it will still only pay buttons more than NMW for a load more stress.

I agree OP. I love (d) my job, but it’s quite low paid. I had ( what I thought ) was a fibroid impacting on my life
( bleeding and pain) So after many appointments/ scans etc, I was offered a hysterectomy. Great I thought, recover from surgery, no gynae issues to deal with, I can crack on with looking for better job. Fast forward, post hysterectomy, said fibroid wasn’t a fibroid at all. It was in fact a rare cancer, with metastic breast discovered at the same time. I returned to work for a few months and bastard cancer returned. I will be lucky to make It to next year, let alone find my better paid job.

Shit happens, we can’t all find a “better” job. My life is ruled by hospital appointments, not job applications.

Yes I know someone who retrained got a masters in a STEM subject and still can’t get a better job.

Yep. What a vile thing to say. The opposite is often true.

I think a lot of people don’t realise that the job market is very limited in certain geographical areas and especially for people living rurally. Employers are few and far between and the majority of jobs pay minimum wage or very slightly higher. It’s not easy to jump from job to job to develop and go up the pay scales. It sounds a bit ‘get on your bike and look for work’ (for those that remember the 80s)

For all those critizing minimum wage jobs, who would care for the elderly? Your children? Work in supermarkets?
Many of these jobs are low paid.

Even 'upskilling' in some of these roles means you get about 30p more per hour than before.

People on here are deluded.

Yep, I chose not to progress in hospitality because I'm shit at management and it's not worth working all hours for peanuts. I was a supervisor working for barely any more than my staff. It wasn't unusual for me to do a 4pm-6am several nights a week because we just didn't have the staff to get the jobs done and we had to stay until it was finished. If things weren't complete by the next day I would just get in the shit for it. I didn't get paid any extra so I was barely making minimum wage so when I got pregnant I decided enough was enough and I was never going back.

I did end up going back into the industry because it worked well for evenings and weekends but I changed companies and have negotiated much better hours and I now actually enjoy my job but I still earn peanuts really.

If you put in minimum effort you get minimum wage

You mean like elder care workers, mostly women, who are exploited by an industry that supresses wages because these workers have so few work pattern options, given their multiple domestic caring roles? I have been, and continue to be, so grateful that carers not only turn up to do their minimum-wage job but manage to actually care while doing it.

They should be paid properly for this hard work, not be told they should have taken a Bullshit for Managers course instead.

Your sister does a great job. People in caring roles should get paid more.

This is a very good point. In lower wage jobs the jump ups are not that high. I just looked at the current wages an employee in a retail store I have previously worked in now get. A manager earns UP TO £28,600 a year. A store associate working the same hours would be on £25,400 a year. The managers are expected to open the store and stay late for promotion changes and work whenever the shop is short staffed, be on call if the alarm goes out in the middle of night etc etc. Is it worth all that extra stress for possibly £3,000 a year extra?

I've wondered this myself.

The regular staff at my work are all 23+ working several days a week part time and full time. We are all reliable and work our hours all year round.

The rest of the staff are made up of young teenagers unable to do regular hours because of school/uni commitments but they fill in the gaps between the regular staff and it works well.

Now to be fair nobody needs to eat out, we could scrap the whole industry but I don't think that would work for the majority of the population. Now replace hospitality with supermarket workers.. yes we can use self service but somebody needs to man the tills and stack the shelves.

Then we get onto carers and surely they can't all be filled with teenagers still living at home. We need people with experience and people content with their job so they turn up everyday instead of always wanting to climb the ladder and in any case there aren't enough of those jobs. I have 2 supervisors and 2 direct managers but the best part of 20 team members working alongside me.

Same. I have only ever done minimum wage jobs. I just dont have the capability to do more. Even then I struggled and am not able to work at this moment in time due to ongoing mental health issues and autism.

My boyfriend is also autistic and is mid 50s and on £35k in a role he is degree and masters educated for. He is able to do his job as he has reasonable adjustments and is the longest he has stayed in employment. It is a junior role but he knows he could not handle the extra stress if he aimed higher. I hate to think there are people on here that would sneer at him for being middle aged on what they would see as crap salary. He can afford to live on it and that is all that matters. If he couldnt then he would not suddenly be capable of a better job.

and a PIP if targets aren't met. Targets increased every year, regardless of the 'market' forces.

Thank you for pointing this out without so many minimum wage workers (who were essential workers during the pandemic and put themselves at risk) so many things would be difficult. Cleaners, porters in hospitals, delivery drivers, shop workers, teaching assistants (earn a little higher but not much), lunch workers in schools, care home workers. So before you constantly berates minimum wage workers as not putting effort in (when they often work harder than m/c workers, no benefits like healthcare and longer more physically gruelling hours). Plus poverty, deprivation, looking after child, trying to pay rent and other bills going up massively and it's very hard.

Plus even jobs like teaching, social work, probation officer etc have decent pay but not much going up and it's actually not that high comparatively with corporate jobs and again lacks the benefits like healthcare, work from home etc. We rely on those people everyday in public service as we do with many minimum wage workers before you say they put in minimum effort and should work harder.

I've been on minimum wage or slightly over most of my adult life.Started working in schools 6 years ago was a dinner lady in a primary for 5 years ,got a t.a job a year ago and now im about to start in September as a pastoral manager in a secondary.I never thought it would be possible.I researched the jobs I went for and made sure I did well in the interviews.

I agree with all the comments saying its not that simple, but I do also agree with this in some cases as i have met people who have just literally never put in any effort for promotion and just say 'my face doesnt fit'. Which is pretty fucking annoying when there's people like a PP who actually was in the situation where they want someone younger/male etc.

I hope you make it to next year and many years beyond x

I also think people forget how you can be born 10 steps ahead and have had a good education, good support, be able to go to uni, have families fund you through unpaid work/internships to get you into a good position which you can than build on. Also how connections and who you know can help you get into certain positions.

Sometimes it takes luck in your side to get a good position too.

Most successful people, if you look into their background, they definitely managed to get to where they are with some great support from parents / family.