Get Britain Working is totally missing the current employment crisis economy

[myotheraccountsa]

Just read the BBC article about rate of UK unemployment up to 5% - the gvmt saying people should question the accuracy of this data, but also that it ties into their campaign to "Get Britain working".

I am mind blown. Are they not seeing what I'm seeing? This isn't an issue with people on benefits etc -

There's a huge new tidal wave of very highly qualified people who have been merrily working for all their lives, now made redundant or upon leaving theor jobs literally cannot find anything. There's a Mid-Senior level crisis all over LinkedIn - 500+ people applying for every 1 job. People searching for over a year with hundreds of applications, interviews, and getting nothing. Basically being told that nowadays the only way to get a job is through networking - it's back to who you know, not what you know.

And then the government act all surprised and like they haven't taxed businesses on workers to the point that they're cutting heads wherever they can? Or that they are oblivious to this and everyone should "get back to work" like it's easy for an ex-SVP to persuade the local chippy they're the ideal employee (even if they're desperate and would willingly work there).

Madness.

DS decided to move to the Southeast because that's where their desired jobs are clustered. A flat share opportunity came up via a friend. With some savings and rent help from BoMaD, it was doable. And happened. A year of casual work was punctuated by a few interviews and offers in hospitality (which they were escaping). Now six months into a new job with training on MW, it's going okay but BoMaD is still paying the rent, because £1700 pm after tax doesn't cover over £1300 pm in rent, food, commuting costs and bills. And that's one of the lucky ones!

I'm lucky as I have a remote job I enjoy, but if I ever got made redundant I know I would really struggle to find anything locally. I can't move for a job as my kids are settled in school and also live with their dad 50/50

I don't know what careers to advise my kids to go into, everything looks bleak. People recommend trades but then I hear those are hard to get into. Also I worry about my daughter going to work alone for members of the public as there are some weirdos out there and each job she does could bring up unknown risks.

Just seen the economic figures. Everything is worse than expected and September saw negative growth.

Who would have thought that raising taxes would not make good economic sense?

This

@GreyCloudsLooming What industry employing grads has halved wages? I cannot think of any. Certainly not the one DH was in.

As for parents: they guide. We hear of proud parents all the time but dc don’t get jobs. We need a review of HE.

The FT had a thoughtful article about freelancing/self-employment for mid-career professionals sometime last week. I read along agreeing with it, until the end where it discussed daily earnings. I spluttered into my tea there: my daily rate in 2000 (for bit-work I didn't really want to do) was £700 then. Twenty five years on, the figure hasn't risen.

I work in media. Eg: starting salary 35 years ago was 25k. It’s 25k or less now for the same job.

@GreyCloudsLooming snap!

The person who described working in retail having different shifts each week that were often cancelled or cut short at a moments notice sounds pretty stressful to me if you have bills to pay as most of us do. Unable to get a second job because the first demands full availability to mess you around.

This.
Never heard of a paramedic on a zero hours contract before.
Not knowing if you are going to get the shifts and afford to eat week to week is pretty stressful.

I have one - pharmacy. Locum rates were approximately £23-26/hr 20 years ago. Locum agencies are now offering as low as £19/hr. With inflation the rate should be £40+ therefore a pharmacy graduates wage has halved.

Yep exactly the same in the LA I work for. I still expect it all to go ahead though, with lots of redundancies for the average staff member. Our SLT are adamant we're all safe, which is utter bs.

In the meantime, staff and teams are in limbo, projects and vacant positions are being delayed 'to be reviewed as part of LGR' which is causing massive problems. In the last few months I've seen good staff get fed up and leave, and morale (which was already poor) is crashing below floor level. It's pretty grim.

@FrothyCothy We are unitary here and it was absolutely necessary. No diminution of services that we noticed. Many aspects aren’t aligned yet, eg planning policies, but we no longer are spending £1 million on several chief executives. LAs need streamlining.

A junior doctor starting salary was £22,000 in 2000. It’s forgetful all media grads were starting on £25,000. However nearly every grad profession has seen static starting salaries. Except doctors . Look at engineering and msny jobs not in the private sector.l where profit snd output matter, Many salaries have been static. However that makes choice of degree and career vital doesn’t it?

You're describing a money issue, that's not related working in retail.

How is money not related to work in any sector?!

It is though, as retail is notorious for poor pay and conditions as part of the work. Employers who don’t do that stand out, like John Lewis (I have heard).

Retail staff also take abuse from the public on the daily; they’re held liable for thefts, they’re threatened. It’s got the potential to be a horribly stressful work experience with very little financial reward.

Anyway, let’s not play ‘My job’s more stressful than yours’ because it’s not very helpful to the discussion!

It seems that some employers have gone insane when it comes to the wages they offer versus their expectations of what candidates can bring.

I usually work in comms/marketing/website management and today I saw a company looking for a part-time web manager in the South East and offered £14 per hour....

For that they wanted someone with detailed programming skills, website database management and systems security experience with a strong IT background. The minimum wage is £12.21 and they think it is appropriate to advertise for a web and IT professional and pay £14 per hour.

Absolutely ridiculous.

Ah, I have come across this. Such employers think the role being part-time is a "perk" which makes up for the wage, because they're harder to find.

She's not wrong.

I was on 5% above the minimum wage, and then it increased to £12.21, so yes, I got a pay increase but I lost the 5%.
The reason I lost the 5% was because anyone on minimum wage (veterinary assistants, receptionists, admin staff and finance staff) earns 70p less per hour than the registered veterinary nurses, and the nurses weren't happy about it.

This with bells on. I’ve just read Patrick Grants book Less and he has a lot to say I totally agree with about jobs and education.

And most kids don't have parents bankrolling them. My son is deputy manager of a garden centre and has to live in a hmo (sneaking his girlfriend in and out past the cctv) because he can't afford to rent a 1 bedroom flat.

He pays £675 per month for a room and isn't even supposed to have his girlfriend stay over.

I can understand that in a job where the wages are very hierarchical like that, but in our business she was an office admin assistant. We were made to increase the wage to 12.21 but this didn’t mean that she was suddenly worth more - her duties and abilities remained the same.

If the govt decided to increase the MW to £20 an hour, it doesn’t mean that those roles are worth that, the MW is a figure plucked out of the air - it doesn’t necessarily reflect specific roles.

It’s hard to explain, but as a business owner, if the govt arbitrarily decides to increase the pay of your staff, it doesn’t mean that the roles are necessarily worth that figure. Some would be (I would say care roles are worth much more than the fairly cushy admin jobs we have!) but some would not. And just because the govt has decided to increase wages, doesn’t mean that the company itself is more productive.

We give pay rises for increases in productivity (eg we pay our sales people very good bonuses based on increased sales) but she wasn’t doing anything more to earn this pay increase, so why should we have paid her over and above what the govt decided?

I have felt for some time that we need to reassess how jobs are paid and how they’re valued. Along with that, I feel there is a need to be more honest about the real cost of things.

As pp have mentioned, employers want to pay peanuts to well-qualified and highly-skilled staff whose jobs carry real responsibilities- by peanuts I mean any amount that is both inadequate to finance a reasonable lifestyle, and also so close to the minimum wage as to make the additional responsibility or the salaries overtime (as in jobs like medicine, nursing, teaching, other roles where you work to complete the job and not the hours) feel exceptionally onerous.
The businesses themselves may not be able to afford to pay more, though. While it used to be the case that if you couldn’t afford your staff, your business wasn’t viable, I’m less sure now that that’s the whole story. I’m also a sole trader and I know my product is in demand, but the costs of providing it keep rising and there is only so much of that that my clients can afford to absorb. So you get a spiral of reduction, where goods and services become more expensive or more scarce, and then most people can’t access them, so they lose a bit of their quality of life. And then we all end up sadder, crosser, less healthy, less spiritually nourished (we all need access to activities and things we love to do) and round we go, increasingly reliant as a country on welfare, and it’s a vicious circle.

@AlertCat It’s up to employers what they pay. Often it’s determined by the value clients place on the service or good provided. Pay too much for employees and the firm is bankrupt.

For state employees, we all pay. We often see bloated workforce with little evaluation of productivity. So it’s not about who works hard, it’s about who actually needs your labour and at what price? Hugely successful companies making large profits tend to pay more for highly qualified staff. Plus some people work much much harder than others and do jobs others cannot do.

We are producing grads no one needs. Their degrees aren’t relevant to the work available. So of course they don’t get grad carers.