To ask what’s your prediction for the job market over the next year?

[MarketMurmur]

This year’s been especially tough: jobs are scarce, pay is low, permanent contracts are rare and competition for decent roles is sky high. What do you think will happen over the next year? Will things stabilise or get even harder before they improve?

Curious to hear people’s thoughts, especially from anyone in HR, recruitment or industries that have been hit hard.

With this lot in charge, I fear things are going to get worse.

I'm not HR but I'm getting the impression that the going is quite hard for marketing and copywriting people at the moment - maybe AI is hitting hard as people use it for more basic, low-level stuff.

My DH is in software, often contract work, and this year has actually seemed better than last year - last year it was just absolute crickets for a whole 8 months, couldn't get a callback from agents whereas a few years previously he could speak to a few each day and apply for multiple roles. It's still nowhere near that, but at least getting a few leads each week he's looking.

As long as minimum wage keeps going up, so will costs for any service users.

Not sure what the solution to that is though!

the outcome will probably be less small businesses and more big corps.

If you want my thoughts on housing: everyone wants affordable housing until them or their kids get stuffed with the negative equity that comes with falling house prices.

Tech jobs will continue to get worse I think. Amazon and Google are really cutting down on their presence in the UK which is the general trend for all my old colleagues in tech.

I think undertaking is on the up and up with the ageing population.

Ageing not dying

But it is a certainty that the work will pick up. Midwifery not so positive.

I am in banking with more jobs being offshored. Not just the repetitive tasks but the work we have been doing here in the UK by highly experienced professionals. The thresholds keep changing as cost cutting is a constant theme.

I think sought after roles will have applicants from a global demographic increasing competition. DH is in finance and the last 3 people has hired were all from Hong Kong.

A close friend with decades of marketing experience is retraining. Friends in IT have found it hard too, far less contracts around. They are moving to the EU.

AI will create roles but that may take time and will probably benefit the younger gen Alpha more so. Every significant change has overall resulted in more jobs e.g. secretaries in offices reales by eberyon having their own computer.