To think we need to start talking about the lack of jobs?

[Newmeagain]

This is prompted by quite a few threads I have read recently, from parents of young people looking for jobs or posters themselves struggling with finding a job.

I feel like a lot of responses are completely out of touch and people are not aware how hard it is right now. There are no “supermarket jobs” etc that you can just pick up.

I think this is having a particularly significant impact on school leavers and graduates looking for their first full time job, students wanting part time work and also anyone over 50 who suddenly finds themselves unemployed.

Yes. Utterly tone deaf to the needs of the population.

Yet the government are complaining about people being on benefits and wanting disabled people to find jobs. There's something really badly wrong with how things are now. I can't believe it's by accident either. Why are they allowing so many migrants in when there's no jobs? Are they all just doing deliveroo or something.

The national insurance increase is OK if it raises revenue, but the minimum wage is bad all round.

Care homes and early years need people. As do construction., In my area very hard to get a gardener or cleaner. Or other trades

I run a hospitality business, and even though we're busier than ever, I've deliberately had to cut down on staffing levels across the board for many the reasons mentioned above.
it's really a combination of factors but mainly the huge increases in national insurance, pensions, minimum wage, let alone energy costs & supplier costs.
even part-time jobs where someone earns £96, we have to pay employers NI of 15% on top of this, it's crucifying us all & is why we're cutting back.
I am swamped with applications sadly, for jobs that no longer I can afford to recruit for.

People saying it on this thread, it's happining in both retail/traditonally young people jobs to skilled jobs.

I live somewhere like this too. Depressing. I really want to move to somewhere with better prospects but moving costs money and DH is retired so not sure if we can realistically do this. We own outright which is a blessing in some ways. But as we live in that type of area, houses pretty much anywhere else are more expensive. Don’t think we’d get a mortgage; DH is retired (nearly 70) and I’m on a very low wage so unless I have a big lottery win, I think we’re trapped here.

I don’t drive and have to get a taxi there and back…thr trains don’t run that early but the shifts are 12 hours at £15-30 an hour. That’s minimum £180 a day. So yes I get a taxi there and back… because I need to make money.

People are full of excuses for why things aren’t perfect so they can’t do it. Like I want to be 31 stood outside in the rain directing cars when I’m doing my third degree… but I need money so I work shit jobs that need a cab there.

This government are a bloody shitshow.

You'd think so, considering all the local nurseries repeatedly advertise.

Dd2 has a level 3 early years qualification, and experience and references from volunteering and college placement. And yet she can barely get a reply from the dozens of applications she's put in. The odd one will say 'sorry, not successful,' but most she won't hear back at all. Then the places will advertise again the next week - for perm/temp/cover/part or full time. Seemingly desperate, and yet nothing. What is the issue?

She's branched out into general care work, and cleaning etc. Nothing, despite being low paid jobs that apparently no-one wants.

DS (10 years older), walked in and out of jobs and now earns 70k, and freely admits that dd2 works harder on her applications than he ever does in his job.

My dc all had part time roles (costa, vodka revs, McDonalds) during uni got them easily and alternated between home and uni city. Eldest dc worked full time at Costa until she found a full time role in editing ( about 3 month) younger dc got a job in education straight out of uni.
Obviously areas vary but we live in a lively city and have never struggled for work

Tbf it was the last government that insisted on Brexit in the most damaging way possible (not even a customs union) then ensured ongoing cheap/undercutting labour with the Boris Wave. Most security guards have been from Africa or south east Asia for several years now and increasing percentages of entry level health and social care workers and that wasn't under Labour either.

I don't really have a point to offer here except that party political analysis doesn't really show an answer.

I'm in Yorkshire and both my teenagers have got part time jobs. DS(18) has had a job in an ice-cream parlour since he was 16. He's off to uni in September, and has got a full time summer job putting up marquees.

DD(16) works in a local restaurant on Friday and Saturday evenings.

I couldn't afford to fund their extras, so they needed to get work. Most of their friends have part time jobs too. Those who don't have wealthier parents and, although they say they're looking for work, they're pretty choosy about what they want to do.
A second summer job came up at the marquee company and DS asked around his friends, but nobody wanted to be up at 7am, five days a week.

You’re very lucky to get paid that much. I just had a quick glance at car park stewarding roles. Some don’t mention a rate, some are min wage. The highest hourly rate I saw was £16. The lowest £12.04 which is actually below minimum wage.

I really think it depends on the area, Ds (18) has been applying for pretty much anything going, including night shifts. He's had a few interviews, gets great feedback, but it always goes to someone with more experience. He's managed to get 2 days a week, but obviously that's not enough, so he's still looking.

He's feeling very disheartened, one interviewer actually congratulated him at the end of the interview, only to later call and say unfortunately although she would have hired him, her manager felt he was over qualified and it would waste their time training him as he wouldn't stay. M&S emailed to say he'd "passed the interview" only to go on to say but the role has gone to someone already working there with more experience. Most places don't even respond to applications, or let him know he's been unsuccessful after interview.

If she's tried to get into care work and hasn't managed to, there's something wrong with her application.
There's always care work.

“Account renting” where multiple people have the same Deliveroo/Ubereats/whatever drivers account is relatively common, despite being against their T&Cs…. But a quick Google search will bring up a number of businesses who act as the middleman and sell these services.

As you can imagine, this is quite popular with anyone who doesn’t have the right documentation required to work legally.

@LittleGreenShootsthis is still an ongoing issue.
My DS previous company (insurance) recently made all of their customer claims service teams redundant and outsourced to Indian call centres. 20 members of staff have been kept in the UK to train the Indian workers and hundreds of UK workers lost their jobs.

I’ve not noticed a huge lack of jobs. What I have seen is a whole cohort who are expecting to walk into a £30k job on day one. The entitlement is real.

I will add we are in a not very diverse area with very few refugees, so those wrongly blaming this for the issue, it's clearly not the case for the jobs to which Ds is applying.

I do agree that outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper, and the introduction of AI is a problem though.

Same in Catford and Sydenham in SE London. Maybe a few white workers like security.

That's what I thought. I used to do care work myself.
But the job centre have given her mentoring, and reckon her cv (for someone without employment history) is decent.
They also keep sending her on interview technique courses, which'd be great if she could actually get an interview.
It was especially galling when one of the care companies that she tried to get into, featured on the local news, advocating for more immigration because they couldn't recruit....
Something appears very very broken.

The introduction of self scan tills in supermarkets etc have definitely dropped the number of opportunities for YP (under 18) in retail along with covering all areas of store as the norm rather than the exception.

My son (17) has just got his first part time job. He has applied and handed cvs out over the last year and easily applied for 500 jobs.

He has done free trials in restaurants, pot washing etc. Employers have been rude by not even having the decency to say he hasn't got the job. There has been lots of competition (15 people over 3 days pot washing, 600 applications for farmfoods etc). Its been awful.

Im so glad he has been resilient as his confidence was getting a knock. I honestly dont think people understand how difficult it is for them.

It will get even worst with Labour bringing in "work experience" for under 24s on UC.

My son volunteered at a charity shop since 14 and has struggled so much, with the influx of young people made to get experience, they will struggle even more.