To think businesses need to step up.

[wishiwasinbarbados]

• Or have my kids just been unlucky?

Both my kids have been let down/messed around by their jobs this year. Eldest secured a graduate job that should have started last Sept as he finished Uni, but during the summer, they Emailed him to say they'd pushed his start date back to Jan 26. No big deal we thought, but they then refused to give him a secure start date despite his best efforts in asking. He then got fed up and jumped ship and found himself another job to start this Sept. But he feels like he's wasted (he hasn't really) a year because of the first company.

Second child just finished Uni this summer and has been working part time for a company through her 3 years at Uni and was going to continue with them but full time for another year whilst she saved up to fund a Masters degree. However, a friend pointed out an advert published for her company with the pay significantly higher than what she is currently paid on a higher grade job! Kind of a worker role vs her team leader role.

Thinking about how many hoops the kids have to jump through to actually get a job these days, I think it's a pretty poor show to then treat people like this.
Me and Husband have always been self employed so don't know how common this sort of treatment is. Kids seem to think it's common to get pissed around. Is it?? Why can't people treat other people respectfully?

Sorry, long post. Thank you for reading!

Plus even the Conservatives raised the minimum wage from £5.51 an hour to £11.44 an hour while they were in office so clearly they also thought it was worthwhile, even with their determination to force austerity on the nation and decimate public services.

Just wait until Rayner's Workers Rights Bill kicks in, in full force. Employers will be so worried about getting stuck with an unsuitable employee it will become even more of a shit show

Yes and the rest of the policies already impacting youth unemployment.

Not only that but anyone who takes a while to find their feet in a new job, who could be suitable with a bit of extra training will be shown the door - already where I work they are putting in 3 month reviews for new starters so that anyone not suitable is shown the door well before the 6 month deadline.
And who do we think may need a bit of training/extra time to show their capabilities? That's right, young people who are being royally shafted.

If reform get in they will get rid of ALL workers rights. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I mean, in america they have no workers rights and their economy is a lot more productive than ours. Since the financial crash they have recovered and we haven't, so a nurse in america can be on double (in real, purchasing power terms) what a nurse here is, it's not just the gazillionaires at the top who have benefitted. Having said that I'd hate to work in a 'fire at will' employment world, it leads to abuse by unscrupulous bosses, and other nasties.

So the question is is it better to have more chance of having any job at all, but less rights or for there to be better rights but half the population can't get a job because that my friends is the choice these days.

Is it hard? A friend of my son’s has an apprenticeship and his employer, who I know slightly, says he’s delighted as the govt cover most of his salary. He isn’t a grad, he’s 18.

There's got to be a compromise central position between not having a rights at all and where we're heading which is too many rights that puts employers off hiring.

Also, the cost/hassle/risk of "genuine" employment continues to fuel the ever increasing rise in "fake" self employment, such as delivery drivers, contractors, sales "agents", etc. that successive governments have struggled with for 30 years now!

Absolutely we will end up with people freelancing/self employed to get work which would have previously been paid employment, with even less rights - another own goal to Labour!

It took Dh 15 months to get a graduate job (earning £18k, which at the time was £2k more a year than all the other employees in the same role who had been there 10 years! He was astonished they were putting up with that crap for 10 years on £16k a year 🤣). This was in 2011. I don’t think this is new really. It’s certainly not because of bloody Labour. It’s not like graduates were whizzing into jobs two years ago. I know because I work in HE.

Dh spent that year in between delivering pizzas for Dominoes, picking lettuce on a farm and working at a pre-fab builder putting together A frame roofs of houses. 15 years later, he’s the director of a company with a monthly turnover of about £60k now. Everyone starts somewhere.

Yup, Labour seem unable to accept the entirely foreseeable "unforeseen" consequences of their actions and it's nothing new, Gordon Brown made some howlers back in his day with regards to fake self employment, IR35, tax incentives for limited companies that weren't offered to sole traders, causing the stampede of window cleaners etc to convert to limited companies. They never learn and don't understand the human behavioural aspects of their policies.

That is absolutely not correct. An apprentice's full time salary would be over £16k minimum - the government are not covering this !!

The government does not pay an apprentice's wages; that responsibility belongs to the employer. They pay towards the cost of apprentice training and assessments. And that is paid direct to the training provider (ie the College get paid for their one day a week day-release) but the employer still has to pay the apprentice even when they are at college for that day!

Thanks. How strange. I hope my son’s friend’s place stays open when his boss finds this out!