Job market is awful

[Flowerpowerz]

I work in pharma (general field) and the job market is horrendous. I’m seeing a huge trend towards AI which is not surprising. Perhaps more concerning is the massive uptick of offshore partners aka shipping work out to India because they are cheaper than people in the uk and USA. I have several friends in several related companies (technology, IT, coding) that have lost jobs due to this. They are being expected to share knowledge with their Indian colleagues before their redundancy kicks in.

I have honestly never known it so bad. My linked in is a sea of “open to work”

is it just me or has anyone else noticed these trends? It’s worse than ever

Musk didn't say you wouldn't need people for the 'demand' bit though, just for the 'production' bit.
Since (in his view at least), automation will create an abundance of goods and services, he suggests the 'Universal High Income' to compensate the resulting job loss.
One could question whether or how exactly that would work, but that’s the next step.
He didn’t say you wouldn’t need people as customers and didn’t ignore the fact that these people will need money to buy things.

I see, you didn’t mention SEN and made is sound like all teens should be on council waiting lists so that they get a house/flat.

Owning property just means you have your assets seized to pay for your care later on. That cannot happen if you're a council tenant.

That is very over simplified and not true. My MiL could choose her own care home, following choosing carers at home. She paid her own fees. Her assets were not ‘seized’. She spent thousands of her own money but still left her house in her estate (£250,000+). I think average time in a care home is about three years, so many will have money left over for family to inherit. The percentage of people needing to live in a care home is also small, so not a definite for everyone.
We also had the option of caring for MiL ourselves but that would have meant one of us leaving work, a much bigger impact on our financial and career progression.

Whilst there are inequalities within the care system for responsibility for paying and issues with private companies making money for shareholders, not everyone loses everything.

Who will pay for your care, should you need it?

The vast majority of people don’t need paid for care. It is also very unlikely your son will get a house in social housing, after waiting - probably - years.

Yes we are well aware of that in the sense he will not get offered one for a long time. As it happens he is not keen on the idea at the moment. However it's something to mull over if he changes his mind later on.

if he’s on the waiting list for 15 years where will he live in be meantime?

because if he lives with you he’s housed so will never qualify. It’s not a waiting list in the traditional sense, people who are in greater need ie homeless will constantly come in ahead of him on the list.

advising him of this when you know so little about it is really poor

Are you also aware that if he does get a one bed flat and he loses his job and he’s eligible for housing benefit that the HB may not cover all of his rent?

Its not a waiting list where everyone gets to the top. Most people will never be offered a house. Only those with the very highest needs will. As a single male, your son will need to have substantial needs to ever be offered a property.

Under RTB much of the decent housing in decent areas was sold off. Your son may not like where he is offered a property, or may not like the property.

Most councils will only allow one or two refusals of an offered property before removing your priority. This means you are no longer offered properties to rent.

How many decades are you advising your son not to save to buy, all the time running the risk that even if he is ever offered a property it may be one he will never want to live in?

Well I'm doing the opposite for my DD and putting £4000 a year into a LISA for her! I'd rather she had the security of a house when she's young and needs every penny of her earnings, if it had to be sold for care in 50+ years time so be it, it's served its purpose.

I was under the impression that accommodation for single people is often (round here at least) only for the elderly.

Although it may take that long for that poster's son to get a place. 😂

I would suggest that people pay for care with their assets - if my mother moves into a care home she doesn’t need her house anymore. It should be sold. There is an entitlement that money should be inherited but I don’t agree - if someone has assets they should be used to fund their care if necessary. Theresa May suggested this with people being left a buffer of £100,000 but it was labelled a dementia tax by the opposition because those that get cancer get “free care” on the NHS or in a hospice. Other suggestions have been made in the past (George Osborne labelled Labour’s last attempt the death tax and the idea failed). For those without assets the state pays (but a functioning care system would give the NHS savings as the bed blocking would reduce).

Spending cuts: They need to look again at the triple lock - it’s unsustainable. They need to look at welfare spending - it’s unsustainable. It’s unacceptable to have youth unemployment at 16.4% - and the red tape, increase costs for employers has caused this. Public sector pensions are unsustainable - 25/30% contributions from the tax payer for defined benefit pensions - nice if you are on the receiving end !

We do pay for care with our assets savings first, then the house (if the last survivor in a marriage/single) but currently that is not enough, I would assume due to an aging population and more people who require care who either have not saved or have disposed of their assets many years before.

If public sector pensions continue to be less attractive then public sector wages would need to increase. For instance, IME those in very senior levels in LA’s do not earn a comparable wage for their level of responsibility and accountability to those in the private sector. Who would do these jobs if salaries did not rise and if salaries do rise their would still be a financial impact on spending.

I live in a small seaside town in the south east of England and people chat to me all the time! at bus stops, in shops and so on.

Coming from London where we all ignore each other and are always in a rush, it was quite a shock for me at the beginning to get used to how friendly people are in my new location.

My point is I don't think you can say that everyone in England is unfriendly!

Maybe because too many employers needlessly ask for candidates with degrees when in reality the jobs they are advertising should not require one...

Yup. Back in the 80s some of my friends left school at 16 and went to work in banks and the like. A 16-year-old wouldn't get a chance at an office job now.

You’re right, many of the high level professional roles are more highly paid in the private sector. However, as an ex public sector worker (nationalised industry, then local authorities) at a fairly basic supervisory level, I wouldn’t have earned as much, or got such good terms and conditions in the private sector. There are far more in the lower ranks than there are in the senior roles. They don’t tend to leave.

China is developing dark factories (no lights because no humans) to produce cars.

Yes. China is years ahead of us when it comes to AI. They also have the concept of the "1PC" or 'one person company'. That is a 'company' which consists of the founder and the various AI tools he/she directs. No human employees needed.

And 60% of Chinese people go to university- double the rate of the uk- so as per most recent posts above the link between university and automation/ lack of jobs is weak.

Chinese graduates are going home and struggling to get work now.

That may be true, but that clearly doesn’t leave the Chinese to believe that higher education is a waste of time, as the British seem too.

It sounds as if countries like China will face the same problems as the UK, AI and automation will eventually take a lot of the jobs. I wonder how China will deal with it?

China is 10 years ahead of the uk.

the point is, the Chinese still see the benefit in education for educations sake. Not solely for getting a job.

That's because the kind of jobs that 16 year olds could do in an office no longer exist. There are no typists, filing clerks, mail clerks, etc any more. About the only office job available to school leavers now is receptionist, and even then that is less accessible than it was as most larger companies will want someone who is multilingual and very polished.

Exactly plus gone are the days of applying for a job in a supermarket with a paper form and getting an interview the next week and telling them when you can work. There is a Tesco forum on Reddit where I’ve seen people reporting how many times they filled in the job application online to get through the bots. It’s often 30-60 times!! And now some places are so specific on the shifts you work it’s not practical for a lot of people.

the point is, the Chinese still see the benefit in education for educations sake. Not solely for getting a job.

Yes and I agree with education for education's sake, I'm just curious about how all the young Chinese will get jobs, degree or no degree. Maybe they'll come to be glad about the historic one child policy?

Because China, despite being at the forefront of automation, has by far the worlds largest manufacturing industry and required literally millions of engineers and product designers to keep that industry at the forefront of innovation.

The same way they have for the last 10 years I guess? Their youth unemployment is only a little higher than the UKs.