Snapshot of _Unemployment jumps as UK jobs market stalls_ :
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What’s most interesting is only 30 million people are in payroll work, supporting a population of approx 67 million. It doesn’t seem sustainable, especially when we hear 40% of workers are also receiving benefits.
A friend has been trying to find a job for 6 months. He's super qualified, his CV reads great but he gets no replies. I just don't understand it, when most employers seemingly complain daily that they can't find staff.
This is the thing, I’ve seen employers hire graduates or apprentices to replace senior roles just so they can pay less, then wonder why they can’t get the same quality out. It’s unfair on the team as well as the people who just got the job because 9/10 there is little to no training.
It’s difficult man I’ve been there. My advice to you is don’t stay glued at one company get as much experience as you can and then move always going to a better wage. Make a linked in account and do a portfolio. Also add as meany recruiters as you can
Solid advice, thank you
I was thinking about job hopping then the company I'm with asked me if I would like to learn a new skillset surrounding my colleagues job role as he is approaching retirement age and is a key person they absolutely depend on daily
I will stay to learn the skills but I won't become the next person who can't have a life away from this place
Just be carful if they’re putting you on a course since you’ll need to be there for about 5 years to work off the cost of training (I think that’s normally the case) or the company will charge how much the course cost.
I’d stay at your place until your not a Grad anymore maybe two or 3 years. But always keep your eyes open and never turn down the chance of an interview, always good to see what’s out there.
The issue is the company will now increase your responsibility and work load however, not increasing your wage.
Good luck I wish you all the best
The only reason you’d need to pay an employer for training is if you have it in contract. Not 100% where that 5 year number has come from.
[ACAS link](https://www.acas.org.uk/final-pay-when-someone-leaves-a-job/deductions-for-training-courses)
A few places I’ve worked previously it was in the contract that if you did training with them like a uni course or collage cause you had to work with them for a minimum of 5 years or you pay how much the course cost. Wasn’t sure if this was universal or not
There is no course , but I will be learning functional skills such as trouble shooting issues to do with our ERP software and process control systems, and I've already had a significant pay rise on the back of agreeing to do this
I did my work placement here during my degree and kept on working during my final year , so I have about 2.5 years experience already
I'm excited to see how things will shape out in the future
Thanks , and you too :)
Yup, that is/was me as a grad.
Technically you aren't supposed to lead projects until you're 3 ranks up at my company. As a grad about half a year in I got assigned to lead a project.
I know one guy who was even newer get assigned to manage projects, and he got dumped with several projects to lead by the time his first year came about.
Anecdote but browsing IT jobs in my field the pay is awful, feels like its gone down a lot in last few years not just stagnated. Getting contacted by recruiters for similar jobs to what im doing offering 65 percent of what im on, salaries i was getting in 2012.
I do a lot of copywriting work—was offered £19k for an on-site job writing about audio products for a PC sales company in the UK. Similar fully remote job with a Spanish company? £40k
Guess which I picked?
The market is being flooded by sub par talent from abroad in a lot of IT. They're happy to take absolutely shite wages too. Recruiter contacted me about a database development role paying 29k. It took a lot to not laugh at him.
It is starting to turn around a bit since Brexit (not that I supported Brexit) but it does stand to reason that if you flood a market the price drops, a lot of companies are having difficulty coming to terms with people asking for pay rises and retention is getting harder so just maybe it will start to improve.
It was good money 25 years ago, I was a skilled aerospace workshop guy and got made redundant when the business closed shop. I did a short course, got into IT and had some of my best pay early on when I knew practically nothing. It's depressingly shit these days and not a day goes by where I don't regret just staying in the aerospace industry.
I recently went to a reunion with the guys I used to work with, most of them got jobs at Airbus or Rolls Royce and they all did well for themselves.
The last time I looked at the job market, IT permie salaries where at the level I'd just about consider, if I was desperate, in the mid 90s.
It's shocking.
It's true, I actually earn less (and I'm not even talking real terms) than 20 years ago when I knew nothing. I was contracting on £200 a day in 2004, today I earn 32k perm and it's depressing.
Just going through my 2nd grievance in 2 years regarding the derisory below cost of living pay offer. I'm caught in trap where it bores me so much I have little interest in learning new skills and at my age it's not easy to do anyway.
At the same point we are up in arms at 10% inflation….imagine a wage hike of say 10-20% needed….most corporate margins are between 3-15%. As such the wage just gets passed on and we are back to the same problem just with higher numbers. The way to make people richer relatively is in rease in productivity which means we produce more for the same hour of labour…
Engineering is woefully underpaid in this country, trust me, I know. The average salary for a quality engineer in Germany is 60k, here it’s 35k and I regularly see job descriptions for less than that, asking for 10 years experience but wanting to pay a graduate wage.
I know too, as I work in it ! So I feel your pain. The sad thing is I’ve see graduate engineering roles for 18K it’s a joke.
That’s why a lot of my engineering friends have moved abroad or have gone to a different field. In my previous job when I was working as a design engineer the most senior engineer was on 32K.
So I completely agree with you
Thankfully I’m on a little more than the average, but wages are certainly going backwards in our industry. I cannot stand the company I work for, but I cannot leave as there is nothing out there paying the same money. I honestly can see the whole manufacturing industry collapsing soon, there simply aren’t enough qualified people.
The issue is we’ve got enough, it’s just companies are not willing to pay for it, there’s a massive brain drain that’s happening and I don’t blame people wanting to leave for more money.
Luckily I’ve managed to get a decent wage now by working as a piping designer. The best way I’ve found to increase my wage is by jumping jobs which I don’t like doing to be honest. I might go back into design engineering maybe even contracting in the future but haven’t decided yet.
Job jumping is the only way these days. So many companies refuse to give pay increases to the ones already employed. But sometimes happy to pay a new person more than the rest. So people leave, and like you say, they take their knowledge with them.
To add to that I was doing CAD once and did all the technical drawings and 3D models for the entire company. I was paid less per hour than a glass collector in weatherspoons how mad is that lol
That would require massive investment and also lots of time. We have been operating a “jam today” for the rich economy for decades now and it’s left us in a huge mess.
The only way out is to tax the wealth of the super wealthy aggressively and get some of the money back. I don’t see another way to get the country back on track.
But some one who is 40 has kids etc you saying they have to sacrifice their best earning potential lives, plis their main middle life so someone else may or may not have a better life in the future. That is a very tall ask for those people. The reason we do 5 year cycles is because thats roughly the length of time People will Not have their lives change too much. Over ten years we have way to much change, eg bank runs, wars, changes in interest rates, 2 possibly 3 presidents in that time. At least 2 parliament’s. You will not be able to plan a cameron style plan today, and thats only 12 years!
In short 2 thing:
1) long term planning today, asks a section of society to sacrifice. Politically they will reject that. The young dont vote, the old dont sacrifice as they already paid off mortgages, lower costs of living etc
2) the world changes too fast at a fundamental level to undertake long term plans. hS 2 is the best example
The mega rich are a relatively small group, they just have a lot of influence because they own large sections of the media and pay influencers and politicians. We need to target that group, not a massive proportion of the dwindling middle class.
The mega rich even though wealthy dont produce enough to cover the demands. You could take everything they own it still isnt enough even if you could collect but you cant easily. Sadly taxes are mainly produced by the middle and upper middle class. If we were to “fund the nhs properly” that would mean like say an extra 4-5% of gdp bringing us from 8% to say 12 which is the average in france and germany etc. Which is like 4% of 2.68tn which is like £107BN!! On a work force of 33million people thats roughly £3500 per working person, or an extra £270 a month on everyone… on a average person on 28k a year they pay 6k tax for the year….so 50% increase….. that is mental. You could squew things towards the wealthier people but you are just pushing the tax burden on them above 50% which they already pay
You can say oh rich pay more but there isnt enough rich people to pay 4% extra of gdp
Why would business owners pass on the higher revenue they get from the the result of increased productivity if their competitors don't either?
Sounds a lot like the discredited trickle-down economics relabelled and repackaged.
Sooo i agree that can be a flaw in the argument. Yes if a company has the power they will. Which is why we have the CMA and parliament to ensure free and FAIR ( a key difference from trickle down) markets.
That said we are currently suffering from shortages in workforce. Provided that power balance is maintained yes worker on aggregate will get paid more.
The issue is if u go to a COLA contract and legislate you follow the benefits to labour until you get stagflation, because when productivity doesn’t increase capital ultimately has nowhere to go outside of raising prices. Thats when the system breaks as you get a wage inflation spiral, or we get a shortage of labour via strikes etc etc. in the case of the 1970’s we had both and 3 day work weeks
I suspect there's a profit bubble that needs to burst. Covid drove corporate profit up through the roof, and the stock market will not allow YOY profits to fall, so companies are desperately squeezing their margins. It has to burst because, eventually, the people you aren't employing are the people who won't be able to afford yours or anyone else's goods and services.
All that said, it does mean a recession cometh.
Most of the areas we have shortages are in either:
1) Roles that nobody wants to work on, such as hospitality, transport, logistics etc, due to shit pay, shit hours and shit prospects.
2) Roles where we have genuine skills shortages for demand because we've funnelled a generation of people towards academia and looked down on vocational skills and training.
What we do have is an oversupply of graduates who are now struggling to find work. That's not to say that people shouldn't go to university, but we need to stop pushing it as the "be all and end all".
> because we've funnelled a generation of people towards academia and looked down on vocational skills and training
This is because those same companies wringing their hands over not being able to find staff are also utterly allergic to training people.
This is absolutely a significant issue - certainly in my field. Recruiters complain that they cannot get staff, yet put in place ridiculous requirements (especially expensive specialist qualifications and courses) as 'essential criteria' for applying for even basic entry level roles, because organisations deem 'good candidates' to be those who already have all relevant training (i.e. those they don't have to pay to train), not candidates who show the right characteristics to be successful in the role. The organisations are then surprised when the few 'properly qualified' candidates they do manage to employ in entry level roles then jump ship for better pay.
Yep, I went back into education when I was 29 because despite having experience in an office, no where else wanted me when I was made redundant despite the job description being the same. So I had to go into education again to try something else.
The people who bang on about "uni shouldnt be the end all be all" are half right, yeah it shouldn't be the end all be all for jobs, but a vast amount of employers do not want to train anyone, and they're actively seeking people with degrees if you dont have that you are fucked. So going to university is now essentially the default path you have to go down.
now a good chunk through my first year at a similar age and i agree. there really seemed like absolutely no other option. and it's not like i didn't try and look around
I don't think that's entirely fair. Apprenticeships - good apprenticeships at that - were very much a thing.
I was leaving school at around the time of Tony Blair's "50% of kids should go to university" drive and there was a definite sense that going to university was "what the smart kids did" and that going and doing a trade was for the ones who were languishing in the bottom sets. That wasn't healthy - it pushed kids into academia when it arguably wasn't the best place for them, it funnelled two many into a system with too few jobs at the end of it, and I'd argue that this "looking down" on vocational training and manual trades one of the reasons why it's bloody hard to get a good tradesman in today.
Don't get me wrong, companies do have to take their share of the blame, but I would also argue that culturally we've got our attitude to education and achievement very wrong.
Blairs stuff was obsessed with neet, that *included* kids being pushed into trades programs at colleges (my da was a college lecturer). The issue happened later when employers stopped being forced to take apprentices. In the 90s my da was getting like 20+ kids in his 30-40 size class of intro to bricklaying apprenticeships, by the late 2000s he was lucky if he got 5 out of 30-40. It wasn't the education system, it was letting employers stop investing in apprenticeships. The industry shifted from large employers who'd have tons of people on the books including loads of apprentices to everyone being small one-two man operations, sub contracted out, who couldn't afford to take an apprentice.
EU immigration was good for filling hospitality jobs, when the only cost is a Ryanair flight it means you can easily come to the UK, work and then go back if things turn sour. That had tonnes of positive side effects for the economy, businesses can thrive, people spend money, taxes are raised. It's more difficult for non-EU migrants to do this even if they weren't restricted into certain types of work because they've forked out thousands on visas and invested months/years planning on moving thousands of miles away.
This is overly simplistic as you may realise. Some immigrants are doing the jobs no one wants. Also, some other immigrants are starting businesses that create jobs. We forget that immigrants range from an 18 year old Iraqi asylum seeker to Yalda Hakim, Dua Lipa and Rita Ora.
Immigrants also create new jobs. There is no finite number of jobs. If you introduce 1 million new working age people you get, approximately, 1 million new jobs. I.e. Lump of Labour fallacy. This is very easily observable. UK unemployment has remained very low for a long time, despite high levels of immigration.
Immigration might have localised (by region or by industry) or short term effects, but long term is unlikely to be the cause of a significant increase in unemployment.
Anyway, this whole article seems like a whole lot of nothingness. Check out the link below, and look at say the last 5 years. Tell me if 4.2% unemployment looks like anything to be really concerned about. If the trend stays up then it's a problem, but I see no evidence here that suggests unemployment correlates *in the slightest* with immigration figures, or that the current bump is at all unusual based on historic values.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms
The first category:
> Roles that nobody wants to work on... ...due to shit pay
is not a shortage.
Or at least it's no more of a shortage than me complaining about a national Rolex shortage because every seller laughed at me when I offered £10 for one.
Depends on the industry though. I can nearly always get a reply out of 5 job applications especially if early. It’s a very muddled economy right now with some parts in need of workers and other parts not far off contraction. Sadly this is a consequence of low growth numbers.
Does he have a human on his side? Sending CVs out and uploading to platforms does naff all, you need a human recruiter to fight your corner these days.
Are they applying through job boards or via speaking with recruiters? The latter generally works a lot better and there is no need to stick to just the one.
Without wanting to be rude, that doesn't sound very proactive. If he's really been trying to get a job for 6 months and has a great CV then he should be speaking to multiple recruiters, getting feedback from those recruiters on his CV and expectations, making sure he has a great profile on LinkedIn, targeting in house recruiters directly on LinkedIn to ask if they have any suitable positions, working on learning in demand skills, and where possible doing all he can to build relevant experience through volunteering, hobby projects, etc.
Chances are his CV doesn't read as well as you think, or he's lacking suitable experience, not demonstrating the right "go getter" attitude, or something else that he needs to proactively discover and address.
Edit: You mention in another reply that his field is very general and rather saturated - perhaps it's time for him to choose a different path where there is a better supply / demand ratio.
Recruiters aren't getting paid to find you a role. They are getting paid to fill a role in an organization. They couldn't care less if it's you or somebody else that gets it.
The trick is to identify the hiring manager and contact them directly. LinkedIn message is fine for most roles. For anything commercial make the effort to get hold of them on the phone, or at least get a message passed to them to show you tried. One candidate recently did this at our place and jumped straight from the CV pool to the panel stage.
I applied to a job as a data analyst I was more than qualified for at a company my friend works at, didnt even get a call back. My friend told me seperately that they thought the amount offer would be too low based on my experience when it was (at the time) higher by a few grand. They said what the offer was on the website, Im obv ok with it seeing i applied
I work in employability (ie, helping people with barriers into work, of which being LGBT, BAME, etc can be seen as a barrier). It's often the opposite of what you're implying, many employers are just discriminatory - some quite openly.
Then he is doing something very badly wrong.
He's either applying for jobs he isn't qualified for, or is cv is poorly designed/written.
If you're not getting replies even though you are super qualified, with a great cv, then there is something wrong at his end.
Not necessarily true.
I’m not surprised to see that unemployment is high. For about the last year, every recruitment round we have run has had an insane number of applicants. I’m talking adverts where we’d normally expect maybe 20-30 applications receiving 400-500.
Every month, I’m rejecting thousands of applications from people who are super qualified with a great CV. He’s not doing something badly wrong, it’s just that at the moment your application has to be exceptional to be considered.
Several friends work in recruitment and checked his CV. I also checked it, and it's absolutely sound. He has definitely applied for some jobs he isn't qualified for, and in six months he's heard back from (I think) just 2 employers. Part of the problem is bis field is quite general though, so i suspect it just gets absolutely thousands of applicants.
Or most jobs he’s applying for receive hundreds of applications? I recently attended a final round interview for a job which required applicants to have a PhD in the relevant field. For the single position they were trying to fill, they informed me they had nearly 200 applicants. Only 6 were invited to an initial interview.
Labour force participation as a % of total population (not just 16-64) hasn't really changed over the past 25 years. It might even be slightly better. Unfortunately our productivity has stagnated so this large increase in labour supply hasn't been accompanied with standard of living improvement.
>especially when we hear 40% of workers are also receiving benefits
This is the crazy part.
If you're working full time, you should not be on benefits. If people who are living basic lifestyles need benefits despite working full time, then minimum wage isn't high enough.
Use one of the calculators and try with a couple both in full-time work and living in rental accommodation. Especially if you add kids and childcare into the equation.
The answer is Yes. Quite a bit of benefits, actually. I just threw in a couple with 2 young kids in childcare and rental housing on 24k/yr each, and it came back with over £500/month in UC, plus some child benefit.
Ive long thought that minimmum wage should be paired with something like "area average rent" or some similar metric, that rent should be required to be a portion of the median income for an area, unless the landlord can prove their property is above the median size and quality or amenities in some way.
As otherwise wage increases can be instantly lost to predatory landlords, and vice versa if rent goes down and its used as an excuse to lower wages. Instead, let bosses and landlords lobby against each other, so that the two of them split the burden as they think is fair, rather than it just being up to the state to square that circle.
Otherwise if the goverment is going to be the one paying for everything it needs to be able to put in stricter controls to stop, effectivly, landlords and wage setting bosses scrounging off goverment benifits.
And the top 10% weatliest sit on about 47% of all wealth . The top 20% of incomes also make about 50% of income (latest I can find is 2016 @51.1% of UK income, top 5% is 22% of income and the top 1% is around 15% I seem to remember) They also pay a lower burden of indirect taxes. The richest pay 9% of their disposable income in indirect taxes, the bottom quintileile pay 28% (in 21/22). They likely pay similar or less than the fairly flat or even regressive council tax, which will be a much smaller burden to them, proportionally less VAT, fuel duty, sin taxes, and their national insurance caps out and isn't applied to their other income streams. Overall the upper quintiles tax burden is about 50%. The lowest quintile is about 44%. The lowest burden falls on the second lowest quintile at about 38%
.
>Across all taxes, the top quintile paid 36.9 per cent of their gross income on tax, accounting for 49.4 per cent of all taxes.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the bottom quintile spent the highest fraction of their gross income on tax. They spent 38.4 per cent of their gross income on taxes, the other three (second from bottom to second from top) spent: 30.5 per cent, 30.4 per cent, 31.5 per cent.
https://www.civitas.org.uk/2023/07/18/effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-uk-household-income/#:~:text=In%202021%2F22%2C%20the%20top,per%20cent%2C%2016.7%20per%20cent.
So in combined taxes the top 20% pay just under half of taxes, but pay a lower proportion of their income in combined taxes than the poorest.
Not saying that any of this is wrong, right or in between. But that that stat always gets presented alone when it's just the most extreme point of a big complicated picture
You spend more of your income to live, and bear a higher tax burden because of it.
I even say I'm not saying anything is right or wrong. Just that the stat of the richest 10% paying 60% of income taxes isn't the shocker it's painted to be. Which is a mirror of your point. Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax.
Their overall burden is a bit more than most other groups but not as out of whack as the 60% stat makes it look. To the extent that presenting it in isolation is disingenuous. They pay *less* tax in other areas, (which that stat ignore) and overall their tax burden is a bit more than others but comparable, and not even the highest burden.
All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out.
>Just that the stat of the richest 10% paying 60% of income taxes isn't the shocker it's painted to be
I didn't read it as a shocker, I read it as they are already taxed ridiculously high.
>Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax.
Challenging the status quo isn't really something to discourage.
>They pay *less* tax in other areas, (which that stat ignore) and overall their tax burden is a bit more than others but comparable, and not even the highest burden.
Except the other taxes are voluntary. VAT and sin taxes are literally luxury items. Higher income folks save and invest their money because they have more of it.
You want more of the latter, less of the former.
>All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out.
It's not a bad stat, stats are just facts. You just don't like it.
The truth is the vast majority in this country barely pay taxes and that should change.
>I read it as they are already taxed ridiculously high.
But in terms of their actual tax burden not that much higher than every else, and lower than some groups.
>>Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax.
>Challenging the status quo isn't really something to discourage.
My sentence there would be true of everything down to a flat tax.
The alternative to the status quo in response to that statement would be regressive tax where you pay more for being poorer?
>Except the other taxes are voluntary. VAT and sin taxes are literally luxury items. Higher income folks save and invest their money because they have more of it.
Ah yes the voluntary council tax, the VAT on luxury goods, such as clothes, gas and electric, the fuel duty (which also attracts VAT) which people definitely don't need to pay because of our outstanding public transport system making car ownership redundant.
>>All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out.
>It's not a bad stat, stats are just facts. You just don't like it.
In isolation it absolutely is. You have no info from the "they pay 60% of all income tax" gives no insight into what proportion of income they make. Even with a flat tax that could be true (if they made 60% of income).
Compare these three situations, one of them is highly regressive taxation giving massive financial liberty to the top 10%, one is massively progressive, one is somewhere in between:
* the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax
* the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax
* the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax
can you identify which of those has the most regressive, or progressive tax structure?
That stat presented alone, (or with a non-sequitur of similar shock value), presented alone give you no info on the fairness of the system.
If you want to discuss if that group are paying too much tax, you have to look at their tax burden, selecting the one tax they pay most of is disingenuous. Why only present income tax?
> The truth is the vast majority in this country barely pay taxes and that should change.
Where some groups pay more of one they pay proportionally less in others. High incomes attract higher income tax, but indirect taxes tend to be fairly static value, which is a higher proportional burden to lower incomes. Over all it (benefits excluded) is pretty flat. Every income demographic has a tax burden between 30-40% (again benefits excluded).
A great way to get lower income groups to pay a higher proportion of tax is raise their proportion of income. The top 10% made 26.5% of all income in 1970, and 35.7% by 2021. The bottom 50% peaked in 1979 at about 22% and by 2021 was 20.4%.
The top 20% pay 36.9% of their income. They earn 36% of all income and that means that overall they pay 49% of all tax. Doesn't that paint a better statistical picture than cherry picking one value out of context?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the extra £5,000 per top 2% tax payer the £100,000-125,000 60% effective tax rate generates is not a big part of the UK's total income tax.
I don't know why everyone gets so hung up on that weird quirk of the tax system when there are far worse income cliffs from losing various benefits starting at £50,000.
>I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the extra £5,000 per top 2% tax payer the £100,000-125,000 60% effective tax rate generates is not a big part of the UK's total income tax.
It generates about £5bn a year, which is slightly less than inheritance tax ( £7bn ). I would say it's quite a significant amount otherwise I wouldn't see any reason to keep such high marginal tax rates, especially how much it disincetives working and promotions ( that's highly relevant for senior consultants in NHS for example ). And let's face it, it's just not progressive and immoral.
>I don't know why everyone gets so hung up on that weird quirk of the tax system when there are far worse income cliffs from losing various benefits starting at £50,000
At £100k you're not losing just the benefits from £50k. You're also losing free childcare hours and tax credits. That alone can make you financially worse off on £120k than on £99k.
How many are self employed? Not all work in one a payrol.
Also how many builders etc have perhaps gone from being on payrol in their own company to bankrupt (was a book during Covid but then materials rose too much so old contracts cost builders money) to then back working self employed and some jobs cash in hand. Neither of which would be counted as on payrol.
I've raised this numerous times although I think it's less of an immediate economic issue and more a structural political one.
When the majority of your population are dependents the electorate are going to be far more inclined to vote for economic policies that result in higher tax, more borrowing, and more welfare spending. We see this today most obviously with pensioners where unless politicians are willing to guarantee state pensions are non-means tested and will increase faster than the rate of wage growth and inflation you cannot be elected. But similar smaller groups exist like higher-education students who demand the government subsidise tuition, the "disabled"* who demand more disability welfare, or non-working single mums that want more government support. Importantly, politicians can only really appeal to these groups by giving them more handouts, not by promising lower tax or better job opportunities.
Additionally, we should consider that 40% of all pounds spend in our economy are spent by the state, so many working people in the UK are still direct or indirect beneficiaries from a larger state and more government spending. Again, you see this clearly with NHS staff and teachers that largely support left-wing economic policies expecting higher government wages (which must be funded by taxes on private sector workers and businesses).
Historically this has never been an issue because we've always had less people / no people claiming pension, less voting age individuals in full-time education and limitations to suffrage, plus a much smaller state meaning far fewer direct state dependants, therefore people were far more likely to vote for policies that reduced their tax burden and improved private sector growth, which would naturally keep the relative size of the state in check.
Today while I'd disagree that the current dynamic is unsustainable (although I'll note we are projected to continue with massive deficit spending which if nothing changes will result in our debt/GDP tripling over the next couple of decades), I still think the greater longer-term risk here is simply that there's no longer a majority of the UK electorate opposed to state expansion, and so the risk of our economy trending similarly to that of say Argentina I think is very high. In such a case we should expect taxes to trend higher, public debt to trend higher and government spending to trend higher regardless of who we elect since the only electable parties will be those that favour a larger state. For this trend to not exist would assumes that the majority of people will vote against their immediate interests in favour of a minority working population and a even smaller minority working in the private sector.
*using quotes around disabled here because I'd argue many of those deemed unable to work could work if employers were required to be more flexible – such as allowing individuals with disability needs the ability to work from home. Most people who are disabled are not economically useless and in my opinion we let them down by treating them this way instead of doing a better job at supporting them into work.
>What’s most interesting is only 30 million people are in payroll work
Plenty of people have made huge amounts of cash from the property market, either from selling up and downsizing to a cheaper part of the country and keeping the extra 200k or whatever and investing it and getting monthly dividends, or keeping a property and renting it out and living in a cheaper country with better quality of life. Plus many millennials and genexers are really starting to cash out from inheritance these days.
I don't expect to be working by the age of 40. I'm not even really wealthy, just my savings go so much further in other countries, I can basically retire, buy a cheap house abroad and my remaining savings/investments will last the rest of my life
We only have 37.5m of working age and that (for some reason) includes 16 year olds. There's going to be significant chunk in FE and Uni up to 22 year olds so 30m seems about right.
That’s not particularly uncommon. [The US has a total workforce of 167.9m in a population of 330m (51%).](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm)
My partner didn't have a good start in life so can't exactly go for the same jobs as me without spending a lot of money she doesn't have to get that level of education. We are both in the 25-30 bracket. She cannot find any service job that has actual, meaningful hours & whenever she does find a rare opportunity that would provide her with a good income, they either give the job to a family member or some kid that has no clue what they are even doing (some of which she has trained herself). I've seen it time and time and time again & it's getting increasingly frustrating.
No one wants to work? My arse. No one wants to take chances & would rather go for the cheaper or family option.
Not sure if you're aware, but a lot of AO civil service roles (the lowest pay band) will hire candidates without a degree. I've just moved out of an office where about half of the AOs weren't degree educated. Most AOs are essentially on minimum wage at this point so I'd imagine it's about the same as service work (although obviously without the opportunity to work overtime etc). There is actual opportunities to progress from low bands in the CS too - there's a lot of mentoring schemes, and managers are *supposed* to help you upskill. Not having a degree might eventually be a bottleneck though, I'm not sure.
Dude, there's nearly a million vacancies and unemployment is basically 4%.
To put that 4% in context, for 8 years after the GFC unemployment was around 8%.
I had that luxury, I'd worked every day in my life and was a manager for a well known financial company... then I got made redundant in December 2019. I took Christmas off with my daughter, started looking for work mid January, had 3 final interviews lined up... then COVID and lockdowns hit. I spent 9-10 months unemployed and got peanuts in support, about £75 per week I think it was back then, nowhere near enough to cover a mortgage in SW London, let alone anything else. I was speaking to someone in the states in a similar position, he was receiving about $1900 every 2 weeks... luckily we kept the house, but it certainly feels like the social contract is completely one sided in this country.
It absolutely should and is how its done in most of Europe (you get paid a percentage of your salary if you get made unemployed), however in the UK this is seen as "unfair" because it leads to those who have more being given more in unemployment benefits (completely disregarding that they put in more).
Yup, you get your pay and almost all of it gets eaten immediately by rent, bills and other necessities like food and fuel, and you're left with a small pot for everything else.
Fair play. My situation is pretty fortunate comparatively as I am on a good income, though I am honestly not sure how people on lower incomes manage to survive at all, let alone save. Very difficult for lots of people at the moment, a real shame.
Ain't going to happen until the yanks start cutting theirs first. And inflation is slowly creeping back up state side.
Otherwise we will devalue the pound vs the dollar and inflation will go up again because of more expensive imports.
Very briefly here, although far more complicated. And I will let others provide the fine details and correct where I am wrong.
The dollar is king thanks to yanks raising interest rates so much recently, from near zero, to combat inflation, so everyone wants their cash in dollars. This resulted in every other currency out there, including the pound, has tanked in value vs the dollar. Everyone was forced to increase their interest rates to match the yanks in order to stop their currencies from going down even further.
Pretty much every commodity from oil to wheat is traded internationally in dollars as well.
Thanks to this, then imports cost more even if the dollar price tag is still the same as before. Thus our inflation problem via imports.
However, the yanks still have their own inflation problem due to hotter than expected demand, cutting rates is generally considered to make inflation worse as debt will be cheaper thus more dollars chasing after the same goods and services resulting in more inflation.
Inflation crept back up to 3.5% for the yanks.
So we can't cut our rates until the yanks do so first.
And it is increasingly unlikely that the yanks will cut rates any time soon, unless they can hammer inflation down and make sure it stays down in the very near future.
The Fed will cut rates, at the earliest, in September this year, but it was originally supposed to be June. There is talk that it might not be until mid-2025 and that another rate *increase* isn't off the table. The recent Non-Farms Payroll for March came in hot, as did the CPI print last week that came in above what was expected.
No, because at the same time housing supply was neglected meaning growth was swallowed up by the propertied few, the services model the uk has specialised into is much easier to offshore and we've seen a fair chunk of that, and the value of skills, especially those considered 'menial' or 'learnt on the job' has been driven down by large immigration rates.
(For the UKIP lurkers im talking about legal immigration that begun to increase in a big way under new labour - and was then SUSTAINED AND INCREASED under the torys. Think on that one next time the torys pick on a scapegoat group. Stop the boats is a massive diversion from an excessive reliance on global labour and skills)
I dont think they're conflicted, they have an "enemy" that they can beat people with and can continue to use. Unlimited amount of immigration means an unlimited amount of tweets and articles the tories can push out to manipulate people into voting for them. The only reason why the boats are a huge issue is because the Tories smashed up and defunded the department that deals with asylum seekers, and if you look at who owns the places that are housing the seekers, they're all mostly tory donors or friends of tory mps.
The tories are benefiting from it all, they benefit from migration because it supresses wages and makes it less likely people will unionise or speak up because companies will just hire the migrants, they benefit from the boats because they're able to put more money into the pockets of the people they work for (i.e. not the public or tory voters) and because of it all they have a consistent "enemy" to bark about.
Is it? The unemployment rate is still lower than pretty much any point before 2018 - we are near historic lows. Wage growth should be the much more concerning figure here if the aim is preventing inflation?
Unemployment rate is a piss poor way of looking at the health of the job market. For one a large proportion of people are working while also taking universal credit. Clearly therefore the state is subsidising a lot of jobs.
I think this article highlights an issue with the high interest rates which haven't been discussed enough. Most businesses have some level of debt and that is now costing so much more with interest rates as high as they are. Businesses now don't have the money to offer decent wages so they cannot offer competitive wages and no-one wants to work for 70% of what they feel they deserve with their qualifications and experience.
I think you're right. I think the BoE even said it is unlikely to drop for a long time. One of the BoEs' top priorities is to maintain inflation, and their only proactive way to do this is with interest rates. While inflation stays up, interest rates will. The trouble is that there is so much inflationary pressure from external factors that inflation is not likely to fall. I think the longer the rate stays high, the worse the economy and the unemployment situation will get.
My guess is that it will get worse. The labour market has felt slow since the back-end of 2022 and with bad consumer data in the US, it will be seen to be getting worse through the stats.
Not a good time to be finding a job!
Didn’t US retail sales just come through high? My impression was that consumer data is looking quite strong in the US (hence the talk of delayed US rate cuts, and stock markets reacting quite harshly to the expected cut delay).
US consumer data is fine, what is concerning is the drastic increase in credit delinquencies/defaults. Also, currently New York, Texas and Florida are well above the historic average of home foreclosure rates, by around 10%. What seems to be happening is US consumers are still "consuming", but using credit for their purchases, which many then default on.
Did they offer those extra wages before the interest rate increase?
As far as I recall people have been saying there's been a wage stagnation since the 2008 recession.
There has been. I think what is happening at the moment is that it is too risky to offer decent wages on a new hire to an untested person. So, currently, wages are growing in line with inflation (ish) for people in work but new posts are absolutely tanking and we see thing like accounting jobs in industry needing 5 years experience and paying less than £30k.
And yes there were high interest rates pre 2008 too but the system then allowed people to just borrow more which went well...
Just as a bit of context - this puts unemployment at a lower level than almost any point pre-2018, and near historic lows.
Wage growth running high, before the new NMW hike has had time to feed through, is in my view the more concerning figure here - since both of those have the potential to impact prices downstream.
Plenty cuts right now unfortunately. Budget cuts = staff cuts and then on top, hiring is another expense so a lot of places decide to put a freeze on that too.
You’re offering part time work for what I can only assume in your sector is minimum wage (or slightly higher) for fairly taxing work. That’s probably why you aren’t finding anyone
Higher than average wage. Higher than average tips. Opportunity to learn techniques and skills used in such places rather than say, a bloody wetherspoons, so that if you do end up loving hospitality (like I did/do) you can move onto other great opportunities.
Headline: "UK braced for record April rainfall".
The comment: "The government needs to do more. When you consider we're taking in 600k people a year, umbrellas will be in short supply!"
I like to play the "find the rational comment" game and then underneath that rational comment is an idiot like you who just for the sole purpose of virtue signalling takes the "immigrants good, white British bad" stance.
The “rational comment” that asks the unemployed people to get jobs, written under a newspost discussing the stagnation of the UK job market? Thank god for enlightened citizens such as yourself. Keep up the good work, champ.
It's not rational though. Industries that are really struggling to recruit that rely upon immigration are struggling even more now. I support schedule 1 offenders who would never have been able to get work five years ago who are now getting work due to labour shortages.
The issue with unemployment is not immigration.
It's not rational.
The people struggling to find work are not competing with immigrants in any real way, and the companies using immigrants still have loads of spaces to fill.
It's not even a pay problem. The people struggling to find work will often get more by retraining into another industry with a shortage, but they refuse to put effort into switching into something they perceive as a "lesser" career.
This is not an immigration problem in any way. Its a skills mismatch problem compounded by an arrogance problem. Too many people have part of their identity wrapped up in being 'better' because they are graduates, and don't realise that they could have a better life in every way by getting their hands dirty.
>Oh well - at least we’ve not got to compete with an additional 616,371 people in the job market who were issued work visas the past year (up from 421,565 the year before) who will also be driving up rent and driving down wages.
You do know that the jobs those immigrants that you keep complaining about do the jobs that nobody else wants to do right?
The fact of the matter is that you are not competing with immigrants
They either do jobs that no one else wants to do or do jobs that are extremely skilled
The real issue is allowing companies to exploit immigrants offering them a low wage for the work they’re doing because they’re in a vulnerable position so they have to accept.
tbh people in this country are allergic to paying money for things, you can guarantee if immigration was cut and prices for services significantly rose you'd never hear the end of the whinging on this sub
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What’s most interesting is only 30 million people are in payroll work, supporting a population of approx 67 million. It doesn’t seem sustainable, especially when we hear 40% of workers are also receiving benefits.
A friend has been trying to find a job for 6 months. He's super qualified, his CV reads great but he gets no replies. I just don't understand it, when most employers seemingly complain daily that they can't find staff.
Most employers are trying to underpay and then throwing their hands up that “nobody wants to work anymore”
This is the thing, I’ve seen employers hire graduates or apprentices to replace senior roles just so they can pay less, then wonder why they can’t get the same quality out. It’s unfair on the team as well as the people who just got the job because 9/10 there is little to no training.
Your describing my experience as a grad
It’s difficult man I’ve been there. My advice to you is don’t stay glued at one company get as much experience as you can and then move always going to a better wage. Make a linked in account and do a portfolio. Also add as meany recruiters as you can
Solid advice, thank you I was thinking about job hopping then the company I'm with asked me if I would like to learn a new skillset surrounding my colleagues job role as he is approaching retirement age and is a key person they absolutely depend on daily I will stay to learn the skills but I won't become the next person who can't have a life away from this place
Just be carful if they’re putting you on a course since you’ll need to be there for about 5 years to work off the cost of training (I think that’s normally the case) or the company will charge how much the course cost. I’d stay at your place until your not a Grad anymore maybe two or 3 years. But always keep your eyes open and never turn down the chance of an interview, always good to see what’s out there. The issue is the company will now increase your responsibility and work load however, not increasing your wage. Good luck I wish you all the best
The only reason you’d need to pay an employer for training is if you have it in contract. Not 100% where that 5 year number has come from. [ACAS link](https://www.acas.org.uk/final-pay-when-someone-leaves-a-job/deductions-for-training-courses)
A few places I’ve worked previously it was in the contract that if you did training with them like a uni course or collage cause you had to work with them for a minimum of 5 years or you pay how much the course cost. Wasn’t sure if this was universal or not
There is no course , but I will be learning functional skills such as trouble shooting issues to do with our ERP software and process control systems, and I've already had a significant pay rise on the back of agreeing to do this I did my work placement here during my degree and kept on working during my final year , so I have about 2.5 years experience already I'm excited to see how things will shape out in the future Thanks , and you too :)
Ah man that’s great news ! Keep at it you’ll definitely go far :)
Yup, that is/was me as a grad. Technically you aren't supposed to lead projects until you're 3 ranks up at my company. As a grad about half a year in I got assigned to lead a project. I know one guy who was even newer get assigned to manage projects, and he got dumped with several projects to lead by the time his first year came about.
Anecdote but browsing IT jobs in my field the pay is awful, feels like its gone down a lot in last few years not just stagnated. Getting contacted by recruiters for similar jobs to what im doing offering 65 percent of what im on, salaries i was getting in 2012.
I do a lot of copywriting work—was offered £19k for an on-site job writing about audio products for a PC sales company in the UK. Similar fully remote job with a Spanish company? £40k Guess which I picked?
Copywriting is so poorly paid. Everyone's basically literate so it feels like they can do the job and it's "easy".
Also firms are starting to use AI to write copy.
omg, 19K.. what are they on about? That's not right.
You are competing with outsourcing on the one hand to India which has been going on since the ‘2000’s in a big way, and now with AI for some roles
You’d be surprised how many jobs being done by ‘AI’ are actually being done by people in India.
‘Actually India’?
He said AI. Actually Indian.
The market is being flooded by sub par talent from abroad in a lot of IT. They're happy to take absolutely shite wages too. Recruiter contacted me about a database development role paying 29k. It took a lot to not laugh at him.
It is starting to turn around a bit since Brexit (not that I supported Brexit) but it does stand to reason that if you flood a market the price drops, a lot of companies are having difficulty coming to terms with people asking for pay rises and retention is getting harder so just maybe it will start to improve.
Further to a related post above, that would have been a crap salary for that role in the mid 90s.
Can also second that - IT feels extremely poor salary wise now than what it used to be.
It was good money 25 years ago, I was a skilled aerospace workshop guy and got made redundant when the business closed shop. I did a short course, got into IT and had some of my best pay early on when I knew practically nothing. It's depressingly shit these days and not a day goes by where I don't regret just staying in the aerospace industry. I recently went to a reunion with the guys I used to work with, most of them got jobs at Airbus or Rolls Royce and they all did well for themselves.
The last time I looked at the job market, IT permie salaries where at the level I'd just about consider, if I was desperate, in the mid 90s. It's shocking.
It's true, I actually earn less (and I'm not even talking real terms) than 20 years ago when I knew nothing. I was contracting on £200 a day in 2004, today I earn 32k perm and it's depressing. Just going through my 2nd grievance in 2 years regarding the derisory below cost of living pay offer. I'm caught in trap where it bores me so much I have little interest in learning new skills and at my age it's not easy to do anyway.
At the same point we are up in arms at 10% inflation….imagine a wage hike of say 10-20% needed….most corporate margins are between 3-15%. As such the wage just gets passed on and we are back to the same problem just with higher numbers. The way to make people richer relatively is in rease in productivity which means we produce more for the same hour of labour…
Yeah but to want a design engineer for 25K is a bit of a joke. which I’ve seen far too often lol
Engineering is woefully underpaid in this country, trust me, I know. The average salary for a quality engineer in Germany is 60k, here it’s 35k and I regularly see job descriptions for less than that, asking for 10 years experience but wanting to pay a graduate wage.
I know too, as I work in it ! So I feel your pain. The sad thing is I’ve see graduate engineering roles for 18K it’s a joke. That’s why a lot of my engineering friends have moved abroad or have gone to a different field. In my previous job when I was working as a design engineer the most senior engineer was on 32K. So I completely agree with you
Thankfully I’m on a little more than the average, but wages are certainly going backwards in our industry. I cannot stand the company I work for, but I cannot leave as there is nothing out there paying the same money. I honestly can see the whole manufacturing industry collapsing soon, there simply aren’t enough qualified people.
The issue is we’ve got enough, it’s just companies are not willing to pay for it, there’s a massive brain drain that’s happening and I don’t blame people wanting to leave for more money. Luckily I’ve managed to get a decent wage now by working as a piping designer. The best way I’ve found to increase my wage is by jumping jobs which I don’t like doing to be honest. I might go back into design engineering maybe even contracting in the future but haven’t decided yet.
Job jumping is the only way these days. So many companies refuse to give pay increases to the ones already employed. But sometimes happy to pay a new person more than the rest. So people leave, and like you say, they take their knowledge with them.
To add to that I was doing CAD once and did all the technical drawings and 3D models for the entire company. I was paid less per hour than a glass collector in weatherspoons how mad is that lol
That would require massive investment and also lots of time. We have been operating a “jam today” for the rich economy for decades now and it’s left us in a huge mess. The only way out is to tax the wealth of the super wealthy aggressively and get some of the money back. I don’t see another way to get the country back on track.
But some one who is 40 has kids etc you saying they have to sacrifice their best earning potential lives, plis their main middle life so someone else may or may not have a better life in the future. That is a very tall ask for those people. The reason we do 5 year cycles is because thats roughly the length of time People will Not have their lives change too much. Over ten years we have way to much change, eg bank runs, wars, changes in interest rates, 2 possibly 3 presidents in that time. At least 2 parliament’s. You will not be able to plan a cameron style plan today, and thats only 12 years!
The majority of people won't earn enough to be affected by the taxes the person was talking about
I’ve read this a couple of times and I don’t understand.
In short 2 thing: 1) long term planning today, asks a section of society to sacrifice. Politically they will reject that. The young dont vote, the old dont sacrifice as they already paid off mortgages, lower costs of living etc 2) the world changes too fast at a fundamental level to undertake long term plans. hS 2 is the best example
The mega rich are a relatively small group, they just have a lot of influence because they own large sections of the media and pay influencers and politicians. We need to target that group, not a massive proportion of the dwindling middle class.
The mega rich even though wealthy dont produce enough to cover the demands. You could take everything they own it still isnt enough even if you could collect but you cant easily. Sadly taxes are mainly produced by the middle and upper middle class. If we were to “fund the nhs properly” that would mean like say an extra 4-5% of gdp bringing us from 8% to say 12 which is the average in france and germany etc. Which is like 4% of 2.68tn which is like £107BN!! On a work force of 33million people thats roughly £3500 per working person, or an extra £270 a month on everyone… on a average person on 28k a year they pay 6k tax for the year….so 50% increase….. that is mental. You could squew things towards the wealthier people but you are just pushing the tax burden on them above 50% which they already pay You can say oh rich pay more but there isnt enough rich people to pay 4% extra of gdp
Why would business owners pass on the higher revenue they get from the the result of increased productivity if their competitors don't either? Sounds a lot like the discredited trickle-down economics relabelled and repackaged.
Sooo i agree that can be a flaw in the argument. Yes if a company has the power they will. Which is why we have the CMA and parliament to ensure free and FAIR ( a key difference from trickle down) markets. That said we are currently suffering from shortages in workforce. Provided that power balance is maintained yes worker on aggregate will get paid more. The issue is if u go to a COLA contract and legislate you follow the benefits to labour until you get stagflation, because when productivity doesn’t increase capital ultimately has nowhere to go outside of raising prices. Thats when the system breaks as you get a wage inflation spiral, or we get a shortage of labour via strikes etc etc. in the case of the 1970’s we had both and 3 day work weeks
I suspect there's a profit bubble that needs to burst. Covid drove corporate profit up through the roof, and the stock market will not allow YOY profits to fall, so companies are desperately squeezing their margins. It has to burst because, eventually, the people you aren't employing are the people who won't be able to afford yours or anyone else's goods and services. All that said, it does mean a recession cometh.
Most of the areas we have shortages are in either: 1) Roles that nobody wants to work on, such as hospitality, transport, logistics etc, due to shit pay, shit hours and shit prospects. 2) Roles where we have genuine skills shortages for demand because we've funnelled a generation of people towards academia and looked down on vocational skills and training. What we do have is an oversupply of graduates who are now struggling to find work. That's not to say that people shouldn't go to university, but we need to stop pushing it as the "be all and end all".
> because we've funnelled a generation of people towards academia and looked down on vocational skills and training This is because those same companies wringing their hands over not being able to find staff are also utterly allergic to training people.
This is absolutely a significant issue - certainly in my field. Recruiters complain that they cannot get staff, yet put in place ridiculous requirements (especially expensive specialist qualifications and courses) as 'essential criteria' for applying for even basic entry level roles, because organisations deem 'good candidates' to be those who already have all relevant training (i.e. those they don't have to pay to train), not candidates who show the right characteristics to be successful in the role. The organisations are then surprised when the few 'properly qualified' candidates they do manage to employ in entry level roles then jump ship for better pay.
Yep, I went back into education when I was 29 because despite having experience in an office, no where else wanted me when I was made redundant despite the job description being the same. So I had to go into education again to try something else. The people who bang on about "uni shouldnt be the end all be all" are half right, yeah it shouldn't be the end all be all for jobs, but a vast amount of employers do not want to train anyone, and they're actively seeking people with degrees if you dont have that you are fucked. So going to university is now essentially the default path you have to go down.
now a good chunk through my first year at a similar age and i agree. there really seemed like absolutely no other option. and it's not like i didn't try and look around
I don't think that's entirely fair. Apprenticeships - good apprenticeships at that - were very much a thing. I was leaving school at around the time of Tony Blair's "50% of kids should go to university" drive and there was a definite sense that going to university was "what the smart kids did" and that going and doing a trade was for the ones who were languishing in the bottom sets. That wasn't healthy - it pushed kids into academia when it arguably wasn't the best place for them, it funnelled two many into a system with too few jobs at the end of it, and I'd argue that this "looking down" on vocational training and manual trades one of the reasons why it's bloody hard to get a good tradesman in today. Don't get me wrong, companies do have to take their share of the blame, but I would also argue that culturally we've got our attitude to education and achievement very wrong.
Blairs stuff was obsessed with neet, that *included* kids being pushed into trades programs at colleges (my da was a college lecturer). The issue happened later when employers stopped being forced to take apprentices. In the 90s my da was getting like 20+ kids in his 30-40 size class of intro to bricklaying apprenticeships, by the late 2000s he was lucky if he got 5 out of 30-40. It wasn't the education system, it was letting employers stop investing in apprenticeships. The industry shifted from large employers who'd have tons of people on the books including loads of apprentices to everyone being small one-two man operations, sub contracted out, who couldn't afford to take an apprentice.
I’ve seen companies bankrupting themselves over not wanting to train people with certifications demanded by law of their customers… really weird.
EU immigration was good for filling hospitality jobs, when the only cost is a Ryanair flight it means you can easily come to the UK, work and then go back if things turn sour. That had tonnes of positive side effects for the economy, businesses can thrive, people spend money, taxes are raised. It's more difficult for non-EU migrants to do this even if they weren't restricted into certain types of work because they've forked out thousands on visas and invested months/years planning on moving thousands of miles away.
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This is overly simplistic as you may realise. Some immigrants are doing the jobs no one wants. Also, some other immigrants are starting businesses that create jobs. We forget that immigrants range from an 18 year old Iraqi asylum seeker to Yalda Hakim, Dua Lipa and Rita Ora.
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They also weren’t mostly people in small boats, which many people forget.
No need to wonder, 2/1300000*100% = 0.00015%
Immigrants also create new jobs. There is no finite number of jobs. If you introduce 1 million new working age people you get, approximately, 1 million new jobs. I.e. Lump of Labour fallacy. This is very easily observable. UK unemployment has remained very low for a long time, despite high levels of immigration. Immigration might have localised (by region or by industry) or short term effects, but long term is unlikely to be the cause of a significant increase in unemployment. Anyway, this whole article seems like a whole lot of nothingness. Check out the link below, and look at say the last 5 years. Tell me if 4.2% unemployment looks like anything to be really concerned about. If the trend stays up then it's a problem, but I see no evidence here that suggests unemployment correlates *in the slightest* with immigration figures, or that the current bump is at all unusual based on historic values. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms
The first category: > Roles that nobody wants to work on... ...due to shit pay is not a shortage. Or at least it's no more of a shortage than me complaining about a national Rolex shortage because every seller laughed at me when I offered £10 for one.
I'm in the same boat only one interview so far. There are normally many more jobs in the middle block for tons of experience but not right now.
Depends on the industry though. I can nearly always get a reply out of 5 job applications especially if early. It’s a very muddled economy right now with some parts in need of workers and other parts not far off contraction. Sadly this is a consequence of low growth numbers.
I'm an accountant who was laid off 6 weeks ago. Since then I've had 14 interviews. It really does depend on your skills, experience etc.
Does he have a human on his side? Sending CVs out and uploading to platforms does naff all, you need a human recruiter to fight your corner these days.
I'll advise him to get one
Are they applying through job boards or via speaking with recruiters? The latter generally works a lot better and there is no need to stick to just the one.
My partner has done the job boards, recruiters and actively handing out cvs and still hasn't found himself a job. The market is shit
Just job boards on things like Indeed.
Without wanting to be rude, that doesn't sound very proactive. If he's really been trying to get a job for 6 months and has a great CV then he should be speaking to multiple recruiters, getting feedback from those recruiters on his CV and expectations, making sure he has a great profile on LinkedIn, targeting in house recruiters directly on LinkedIn to ask if they have any suitable positions, working on learning in demand skills, and where possible doing all he can to build relevant experience through volunteering, hobby projects, etc. Chances are his CV doesn't read as well as you think, or he's lacking suitable experience, not demonstrating the right "go getter" attitude, or something else that he needs to proactively discover and address. Edit: You mention in another reply that his field is very general and rather saturated - perhaps it's time for him to choose a different path where there is a better supply / demand ratio.
Job boards are wank and recruiters are earning good money to find you a role. Its foolish to not use them.
Recruiters aren't getting paid to find you a role. They are getting paid to fill a role in an organization. They couldn't care less if it's you or somebody else that gets it.
So? It's a mutually beneficial transaction, no? I am not saying they are altrustic. They are salespeople pushing you, as the product. Pretty valuable.
The trick is to identify the hiring manager and contact them directly. LinkedIn message is fine for most roles. For anything commercial make the effort to get hold of them on the phone, or at least get a message passed to them to show you tried. One candidate recently did this at our place and jumped straight from the CV pool to the panel stage.
Tell him to use recruiters. They have jobs already in their remit. You can get an interview the same day most times if you come across well to them.
I applied to a job as a data analyst I was more than qualified for at a company my friend works at, didnt even get a call back. My friend told me seperately that they thought the amount offer would be too low based on my experience when it was (at the time) higher by a few grand. They said what the offer was on the website, Im obv ok with it seeing i applied
Maybe he should try being nigerian and working for 80% of the prevailing wage?
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I work in employability (ie, helping people with barriers into work, of which being LGBT, BAME, etc can be seen as a barrier). It's often the opposite of what you're implying, many employers are just discriminatory - some quite openly.
Then he is doing something very badly wrong. He's either applying for jobs he isn't qualified for, or is cv is poorly designed/written. If you're not getting replies even though you are super qualified, with a great cv, then there is something wrong at his end.
Not necessarily true. I’m not surprised to see that unemployment is high. For about the last year, every recruitment round we have run has had an insane number of applicants. I’m talking adverts where we’d normally expect maybe 20-30 applications receiving 400-500. Every month, I’m rejecting thousands of applications from people who are super qualified with a great CV. He’s not doing something badly wrong, it’s just that at the moment your application has to be exceptional to be considered.
Several friends work in recruitment and checked his CV. I also checked it, and it's absolutely sound. He has definitely applied for some jobs he isn't qualified for, and in six months he's heard back from (I think) just 2 employers. Part of the problem is bis field is quite general though, so i suspect it just gets absolutely thousands of applicants.
Or most jobs he’s applying for receive hundreds of applications? I recently attended a final round interview for a job which required applicants to have a PhD in the relevant field. For the single position they were trying to fill, they informed me they had nearly 200 applicants. Only 6 were invited to an initial interview.
Not really. Everyone I speak to who is looking for work is saying the exact same thing.
It depends on his industry, some are kinda dead now.
If you look at the house prices, you would think everyone in the country was rolling in cash.
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Idk about “majority” being fine. Everyone is feeling the squeeze, especially the middle class where many of the tax cliffs exist.
This is only the beginning. The phrase 'old age dependency ratio' will be common usage.
After COVID a lot of people just didn't come back, early retirement and long term sick.
Labour force participation as a % of total population (not just 16-64) hasn't really changed over the past 25 years. It might even be slightly better. Unfortunately our productivity has stagnated so this large increase in labour supply hasn't been accompanied with standard of living improvement.
>especially when we hear 40% of workers are also receiving benefits This is the crazy part. If you're working full time, you should not be on benefits. If people who are living basic lifestyles need benefits despite working full time, then minimum wage isn't high enough.
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You have it upside down - the tax base has to be extended downward. Removal of the tax free allowance for a start. Matching taxation from Scandinavia.
Nah man, this sub wants American taxes with Nordic services, everything else is BS.
Both. But mainly minimum wage needs to increase so those people aren't on benefits. The public purse should not be subsidizing wages.
Are people on minimum wage on benefits? It’s 24,000 a year full time..
Use one of the calculators and try with a couple both in full-time work and living in rental accommodation. Especially if you add kids and childcare into the equation. The answer is Yes. Quite a bit of benefits, actually. I just threw in a couple with 2 young kids in childcare and rental housing on 24k/yr each, and it came back with over £500/month in UC, plus some child benefit.
Ive long thought that minimmum wage should be paired with something like "area average rent" or some similar metric, that rent should be required to be a portion of the median income for an area, unless the landlord can prove their property is above the median size and quality or amenities in some way. As otherwise wage increases can be instantly lost to predatory landlords, and vice versa if rent goes down and its used as an excuse to lower wages. Instead, let bosses and landlords lobby against each other, so that the two of them split the burden as they think is fair, rather than it just being up to the state to square that circle. Otherwise if the goverment is going to be the one paying for everything it needs to be able to put in stricter controls to stop, effectivly, landlords and wage setting bosses scrounging off goverment benifits.
60% of income tax is paid by about 10% of the population. We have marginal tax rates into 60%+ territory
And the top 10% weatliest sit on about 47% of all wealth . The top 20% of incomes also make about 50% of income (latest I can find is 2016 @51.1% of UK income, top 5% is 22% of income and the top 1% is around 15% I seem to remember) They also pay a lower burden of indirect taxes. The richest pay 9% of their disposable income in indirect taxes, the bottom quintileile pay 28% (in 21/22). They likely pay similar or less than the fairly flat or even regressive council tax, which will be a much smaller burden to them, proportionally less VAT, fuel duty, sin taxes, and their national insurance caps out and isn't applied to their other income streams. Overall the upper quintiles tax burden is about 50%. The lowest quintile is about 44%. The lowest burden falls on the second lowest quintile at about 38% . >Across all taxes, the top quintile paid 36.9 per cent of their gross income on tax, accounting for 49.4 per cent of all taxes. Perhaps most surprisingly, the bottom quintile spent the highest fraction of their gross income on tax. They spent 38.4 per cent of their gross income on taxes, the other three (second from bottom to second from top) spent: 30.5 per cent, 30.4 per cent, 31.5 per cent. https://www.civitas.org.uk/2023/07/18/effects-of-taxes-and-benefits-on-uk-household-income/#:~:text=In%202021%2F22%2C%20the%20top,per%20cent%2C%2016.7%20per%20cent. So in combined taxes the top 20% pay just under half of taxes, but pay a lower proportion of their income in combined taxes than the poorest. Not saying that any of this is wrong, right or in between. But that that stat always gets presented alone when it's just the most extreme point of a big complicated picture
But that just makes sense doesn't? If you're poorer, you spend more of your income to live. It's not a fair or not fair argument, it just is.
You spend more of your income to live, and bear a higher tax burden because of it. I even say I'm not saying anything is right or wrong. Just that the stat of the richest 10% paying 60% of income taxes isn't the shocker it's painted to be. Which is a mirror of your point. Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax. Their overall burden is a bit more than most other groups but not as out of whack as the 60% stat makes it look. To the extent that presenting it in isolation is disingenuous. They pay *less* tax in other areas, (which that stat ignore) and overall their tax burden is a bit more than others but comparable, and not even the highest burden. All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out.
>Just that the stat of the richest 10% paying 60% of income taxes isn't the shocker it's painted to be I didn't read it as a shocker, I read it as they are already taxed ridiculously high. >Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax. Challenging the status quo isn't really something to discourage. >They pay *less* tax in other areas, (which that stat ignore) and overall their tax burden is a bit more than others but comparable, and not even the highest burden. Except the other taxes are voluntary. VAT and sin taxes are literally luxury items. Higher income folks save and invest their money because they have more of it. You want more of the latter, less of the former. >All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out. It's not a bad stat, stats are just facts. You just don't like it. The truth is the vast majority in this country barely pay taxes and that should change.
>I read it as they are already taxed ridiculously high. But in terms of their actual tax burden not that much higher than every else, and lower than some groups. >>Of course they pay most income tax. They have most income, they pay most income tax. >Challenging the status quo isn't really something to discourage. My sentence there would be true of everything down to a flat tax. The alternative to the status quo in response to that statement would be regressive tax where you pay more for being poorer? >Except the other taxes are voluntary. VAT and sin taxes are literally luxury items. Higher income folks save and invest their money because they have more of it. Ah yes the voluntary council tax, the VAT on luxury goods, such as clothes, gas and electric, the fuel duty (which also attracts VAT) which people definitely don't need to pay because of our outstanding public transport system making car ownership redundant. >>All I'm saying is that that one stat in isolation which gets dragged out on the regular, is a bad stat, from a complex picture, that isn't as egregious as that one stat makes out. >It's not a bad stat, stats are just facts. You just don't like it. In isolation it absolutely is. You have no info from the "they pay 60% of all income tax" gives no insight into what proportion of income they make. Even with a flat tax that could be true (if they made 60% of income). Compare these three situations, one of them is highly regressive taxation giving massive financial liberty to the top 10%, one is massively progressive, one is somewhere in between: * the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax * the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax * the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax can you identify which of those has the most regressive, or progressive tax structure? That stat presented alone, (or with a non-sequitur of similar shock value), presented alone give you no info on the fairness of the system. If you want to discuss if that group are paying too much tax, you have to look at their tax burden, selecting the one tax they pay most of is disingenuous. Why only present income tax? > The truth is the vast majority in this country barely pay taxes and that should change. Where some groups pay more of one they pay proportionally less in others. High incomes attract higher income tax, but indirect taxes tend to be fairly static value, which is a higher proportional burden to lower incomes. Over all it (benefits excluded) is pretty flat. Every income demographic has a tax burden between 30-40% (again benefits excluded). A great way to get lower income groups to pay a higher proportion of tax is raise their proportion of income. The top 10% made 26.5% of all income in 1970, and 35.7% by 2021. The bottom 50% peaked in 1979 at about 22% and by 2021 was 20.4%. The top 20% pay 36.9% of their income. They earn 36% of all income and that means that overall they pay 49% of all tax. Doesn't that paint a better statistical picture than cherry picking one value out of context?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the extra £5,000 per top 2% tax payer the £100,000-125,000 60% effective tax rate generates is not a big part of the UK's total income tax. I don't know why everyone gets so hung up on that weird quirk of the tax system when there are far worse income cliffs from losing various benefits starting at £50,000.
>I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the extra £5,000 per top 2% tax payer the £100,000-125,000 60% effective tax rate generates is not a big part of the UK's total income tax. It generates about £5bn a year, which is slightly less than inheritance tax ( £7bn ). I would say it's quite a significant amount otherwise I wouldn't see any reason to keep such high marginal tax rates, especially how much it disincetives working and promotions ( that's highly relevant for senior consultants in NHS for example ). And let's face it, it's just not progressive and immoral. >I don't know why everyone gets so hung up on that weird quirk of the tax system when there are far worse income cliffs from losing various benefits starting at £50,000 At £100k you're not losing just the benefits from £50k. You're also losing free childcare hours and tax credits. That alone can make you financially worse off on £120k than on £99k.
How many are self employed? Not all work in one a payrol. Also how many builders etc have perhaps gone from being on payrol in their own company to bankrupt (was a book during Covid but then materials rose too much so old contracts cost builders money) to then back working self employed and some jobs cash in hand. Neither of which would be counted as on payrol.
I've raised this numerous times although I think it's less of an immediate economic issue and more a structural political one. When the majority of your population are dependents the electorate are going to be far more inclined to vote for economic policies that result in higher tax, more borrowing, and more welfare spending. We see this today most obviously with pensioners where unless politicians are willing to guarantee state pensions are non-means tested and will increase faster than the rate of wage growth and inflation you cannot be elected. But similar smaller groups exist like higher-education students who demand the government subsidise tuition, the "disabled"* who demand more disability welfare, or non-working single mums that want more government support. Importantly, politicians can only really appeal to these groups by giving them more handouts, not by promising lower tax or better job opportunities. Additionally, we should consider that 40% of all pounds spend in our economy are spent by the state, so many working people in the UK are still direct or indirect beneficiaries from a larger state and more government spending. Again, you see this clearly with NHS staff and teachers that largely support left-wing economic policies expecting higher government wages (which must be funded by taxes on private sector workers and businesses). Historically this has never been an issue because we've always had less people / no people claiming pension, less voting age individuals in full-time education and limitations to suffrage, plus a much smaller state meaning far fewer direct state dependants, therefore people were far more likely to vote for policies that reduced their tax burden and improved private sector growth, which would naturally keep the relative size of the state in check. Today while I'd disagree that the current dynamic is unsustainable (although I'll note we are projected to continue with massive deficit spending which if nothing changes will result in our debt/GDP tripling over the next couple of decades), I still think the greater longer-term risk here is simply that there's no longer a majority of the UK electorate opposed to state expansion, and so the risk of our economy trending similarly to that of say Argentina I think is very high. In such a case we should expect taxes to trend higher, public debt to trend higher and government spending to trend higher regardless of who we elect since the only electable parties will be those that favour a larger state. For this trend to not exist would assumes that the majority of people will vote against their immediate interests in favour of a minority working population and a even smaller minority working in the private sector. *using quotes around disabled here because I'd argue many of those deemed unable to work could work if employers were required to be more flexible – such as allowing individuals with disability needs the ability to work from home. Most people who are disabled are not economically useless and in my opinion we let them down by treating them this way instead of doing a better job at supporting them into work.
>What’s most interesting is only 30 million people are in payroll work Plenty of people have made huge amounts of cash from the property market, either from selling up and downsizing to a cheaper part of the country and keeping the extra 200k or whatever and investing it and getting monthly dividends, or keeping a property and renting it out and living in a cheaper country with better quality of life. Plus many millennials and genexers are really starting to cash out from inheritance these days. I don't expect to be working by the age of 40. I'm not even really wealthy, just my savings go so much further in other countries, I can basically retire, buy a cheap house abroad and my remaining savings/investments will last the rest of my life
We only have 37.5m of working age and that (for some reason) includes 16 year olds. There's going to be significant chunk in FE and Uni up to 22 year olds so 30m seems about right.
Benefits probably also include childcare, meaning someone on 70k - 100k who's def a net contributor also receives benefits on paper.
That’s not particularly uncommon. [The US has a total workforce of 167.9m in a population of 330m (51%).](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm)
My partner didn't have a good start in life so can't exactly go for the same jobs as me without spending a lot of money she doesn't have to get that level of education. We are both in the 25-30 bracket. She cannot find any service job that has actual, meaningful hours & whenever she does find a rare opportunity that would provide her with a good income, they either give the job to a family member or some kid that has no clue what they are even doing (some of which she has trained herself). I've seen it time and time and time again & it's getting increasingly frustrating. No one wants to work? My arse. No one wants to take chances & would rather go for the cheaper or family option.
Not sure if you're aware, but a lot of AO civil service roles (the lowest pay band) will hire candidates without a degree. I've just moved out of an office where about half of the AOs weren't degree educated. Most AOs are essentially on minimum wage at this point so I'd imagine it's about the same as service work (although obviously without the opportunity to work overtime etc). There is actual opportunities to progress from low bands in the CS too - there's a lot of mentoring schemes, and managers are *supposed* to help you upskill. Not having a degree might eventually be a bottleneck though, I'm not sure.
FUCKING AWESOME, WHAT A GREAT TIME TO BE MADE REDUNDANT.
It could be worse, I got made redundant in December 2019.
It's always at Christmas to add to the misery, COVID would have been the icing on the cake.
Dude, there's nearly a million vacancies and unemployment is basically 4%. To put that 4% in context, for 8 years after the GFC unemployment was around 8%.
Rayner and Rwanda overdrive this week from CCHQ
We're on our way out of Rishession though everyone!
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I had that luxury, I'd worked every day in my life and was a manager for a well known financial company... then I got made redundant in December 2019. I took Christmas off with my daughter, started looking for work mid January, had 3 final interviews lined up... then COVID and lockdowns hit. I spent 9-10 months unemployed and got peanuts in support, about £75 per week I think it was back then, nowhere near enough to cover a mortgage in SW London, let alone anything else. I was speaking to someone in the states in a similar position, he was receiving about $1900 every 2 weeks... luckily we kept the house, but it certainly feels like the social contract is completely one sided in this country.
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It absolutely should and is how its done in most of Europe (you get paid a percentage of your salary if you get made unemployed), however in the UK this is seen as "unfair" because it leads to those who have more being given more in unemployment benefits (completely disregarding that they put in more).
Lol I have owings not savings
Tories should never be forgiven.
I don't even have a days worth of expenses in my savings, life is rough lmfao
I was going to say… what are savings?! I have £100 I “day trade” with in an isa and that’s it
Yup, you get your pay and almost all of it gets eaten immediately by rent, bills and other necessities like food and fuel, and you're left with a small pot for everything else.
I’d go as far as to say almost no one has that luxury.
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I don’t think I know anyone with 6 months salary saved. Please note I said ‘almost’, I’d suspect you are in the minority.
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Fair play. My situation is pretty fortunate comparatively as I am on a good income, though I am honestly not sure how people on lower incomes manage to survive at all, let alone save. Very difficult for lots of people at the moment, a real shame.
who would have thought that paying people barley enough to get by would cause a problem?
Yeah, wheat are they thinking!?
This is really corn-y
I'm sure they were planning in the hops that people would pull themselves up rye their bootstraps.
I imagine they're hoping no-one forms any millet ant unions and demands a proper pay rice.
Love the magical thinking about rate cuts from the economists in this article.
Wage growth at 6%. 9% when including bonuses. Great to see some consistent real wage growth
Just now need to scrap the triple lock!
Or bad if you're looking at wanting rates to come down sooner
Or good if you don’t
Time to cut interest rates and get growth going.
Ain't going to happen until the yanks start cutting theirs first. And inflation is slowly creeping back up state side. Otherwise we will devalue the pound vs the dollar and inflation will go up again because of more expensive imports.
Interesting take. I’ve taken a long hiatus from the markets and don’t know the market set up. Indulge me with a brief recap?
Very briefly here, although far more complicated. And I will let others provide the fine details and correct where I am wrong. The dollar is king thanks to yanks raising interest rates so much recently, from near zero, to combat inflation, so everyone wants their cash in dollars. This resulted in every other currency out there, including the pound, has tanked in value vs the dollar. Everyone was forced to increase their interest rates to match the yanks in order to stop their currencies from going down even further. Pretty much every commodity from oil to wheat is traded internationally in dollars as well. Thanks to this, then imports cost more even if the dollar price tag is still the same as before. Thus our inflation problem via imports. However, the yanks still have their own inflation problem due to hotter than expected demand, cutting rates is generally considered to make inflation worse as debt will be cheaper thus more dollars chasing after the same goods and services resulting in more inflation. Inflation crept back up to 3.5% for the yanks. So we can't cut our rates until the yanks do so first. And it is increasingly unlikely that the yanks will cut rates any time soon, unless they can hammer inflation down and make sure it stays down in the very near future.
The Fed will cut rates, at the earliest, in September this year, but it was originally supposed to be June. There is talk that it might not be until mid-2025 and that another rate *increase* isn't off the table. The recent Non-Farms Payroll for March came in hot, as did the CPI print last week that came in above what was expected.
Wage growth was still strong unfort so sort of counters it. Hopefully for summer though as guided for.
Did our economy ever scale from degrees being attained by a minority and then becoming a norm?
No, because at the same time housing supply was neglected meaning growth was swallowed up by the propertied few, the services model the uk has specialised into is much easier to offshore and we've seen a fair chunk of that, and the value of skills, especially those considered 'menial' or 'learnt on the job' has been driven down by large immigration rates. (For the UKIP lurkers im talking about legal immigration that begun to increase in a big way under new labour - and was then SUSTAINED AND INCREASED under the torys. Think on that one next time the torys pick on a scapegoat group. Stop the boats is a massive diversion from an excessive reliance on global labour and skills)
Tories must be so conflicted, all their big donors are for cheap imported labor, but a core demographic absolutely loathes the idea.
I dont think they're conflicted, they have an "enemy" that they can beat people with and can continue to use. Unlimited amount of immigration means an unlimited amount of tweets and articles the tories can push out to manipulate people into voting for them. The only reason why the boats are a huge issue is because the Tories smashed up and defunded the department that deals with asylum seekers, and if you look at who owns the places that are housing the seekers, they're all mostly tory donors or friends of tory mps. The tories are benefiting from it all, they benefit from migration because it supresses wages and makes it less likely people will unionise or speak up because companies will just hire the migrants, they benefit from the boats because they're able to put more money into the pockets of the people they work for (i.e. not the public or tory voters) and because of it all they have a consistent "enemy" to bark about.
This is the final metric that brings down inflation, and all it took was a measly 5% base interest rate, our economy is a shambles.
Is it? The unemployment rate is still lower than pretty much any point before 2018 - we are near historic lows. Wage growth should be the much more concerning figure here if the aim is preventing inflation?
Unemployment rate is a piss poor way of looking at the health of the job market. For one a large proportion of people are working while also taking universal credit. Clearly therefore the state is subsidising a lot of jobs.
I think this article highlights an issue with the high interest rates which haven't been discussed enough. Most businesses have some level of debt and that is now costing so much more with interest rates as high as they are. Businesses now don't have the money to offer decent wages so they cannot offer competitive wages and no-one wants to work for 70% of what they feel they deserve with their qualifications and experience.
Let's see what the BoE says about rates. Been talking to a few people and they all expect it to not drop anytime soon
I think you're right. I think the BoE even said it is unlikely to drop for a long time. One of the BoEs' top priorities is to maintain inflation, and their only proactive way to do this is with interest rates. While inflation stays up, interest rates will. The trouble is that there is so much inflationary pressure from external factors that inflation is not likely to fall. I think the longer the rate stays high, the worse the economy and the unemployment situation will get.
My guess is that it will get worse. The labour market has felt slow since the back-end of 2022 and with bad consumer data in the US, it will be seen to be getting worse through the stats. Not a good time to be finding a job!
Didn’t US retail sales just come through high? My impression was that consumer data is looking quite strong in the US (hence the talk of delayed US rate cuts, and stock markets reacting quite harshly to the expected cut delay).
US consumer data is fine, what is concerning is the drastic increase in credit delinquencies/defaults. Also, currently New York, Texas and Florida are well above the historic average of home foreclosure rates, by around 10%. What seems to be happening is US consumers are still "consuming", but using credit for their purchases, which many then default on.
The Big Short 2: Electric Boogaloo
Did they offer those extra wages before the interest rate increase? As far as I recall people have been saying there's been a wage stagnation since the 2008 recession.
There has been. I think what is happening at the moment is that it is too risky to offer decent wages on a new hire to an untested person. So, currently, wages are growing in line with inflation (ish) for people in work but new posts are absolutely tanking and we see thing like accounting jobs in industry needing 5 years experience and paying less than £30k. And yes there were high interest rates pre 2008 too but the system then allowed people to just borrow more which went well...
Just as a bit of context - this puts unemployment at a lower level than almost any point pre-2018, and near historic lows. Wage growth running high, before the new NMW hike has had time to feed through, is in my view the more concerning figure here - since both of those have the potential to impact prices downstream.
Plenty cuts right now unfortunately. Budget cuts = staff cuts and then on top, hiring is another expense so a lot of places decide to put a freeze on that too.
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You’re offering part time work for what I can only assume in your sector is minimum wage (or slightly higher) for fairly taxing work. That’s probably why you aren’t finding anyone
Why would the fact its a well respected spot attract more workers? What tangible benefits does that bring?
Higher than average wage. Higher than average tips. Opportunity to learn techniques and skills used in such places rather than say, a bloody wetherspoons, so that if you do end up loving hospitality (like I did/do) you can move onto other great opportunities.
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You don't know much do you?
Christ immigrants really do live in the heads of you lot for free don't they?
Headline: "UK braced for record April rainfall". The comment: "The government needs to do more. When you consider we're taking in 600k people a year, umbrellas will be in short supply!"
I like to play the "find the rational comment" game and then underneath that rational comment is an idiot like you who just for the sole purpose of virtue signalling takes the "immigrants good, white British bad" stance.
The “rational comment” that asks the unemployed people to get jobs, written under a newspost discussing the stagnation of the UK job market? Thank god for enlightened citizens such as yourself. Keep up the good work, champ.
It's not rational though. Industries that are really struggling to recruit that rely upon immigration are struggling even more now. I support schedule 1 offenders who would never have been able to get work five years ago who are now getting work due to labour shortages. The issue with unemployment is not immigration.
It's not rational. The people struggling to find work are not competing with immigrants in any real way, and the companies using immigrants still have loads of spaces to fill. It's not even a pay problem. The people struggling to find work will often get more by retraining into another industry with a shortage, but they refuse to put effort into switching into something they perceive as a "lesser" career. This is not an immigration problem in any way. Its a skills mismatch problem compounded by an arrogance problem. Too many people have part of their identity wrapped up in being 'better' because they are graduates, and don't realise that they could have a better life in every way by getting their hands dirty.
I agree. If this making spreadsheets thing doesn't work out, I'm gonna learn to be a sparky.
Well they live everywhere else for free!
>Oh well - at least we’ve not got to compete with an additional 616,371 people in the job market who were issued work visas the past year (up from 421,565 the year before) who will also be driving up rent and driving down wages. You do know that the jobs those immigrants that you keep complaining about do the jobs that nobody else wants to do right? The fact of the matter is that you are not competing with immigrants They either do jobs that no one else wants to do or do jobs that are extremely skilled
The real issue is allowing companies to exploit immigrants offering them a low wage for the work they’re doing because they’re in a vulnerable position so they have to accept.
tbh people in this country are allergic to paying money for things, you can guarantee if immigration was cut and prices for services significantly rose you'd never hear the end of the whinging on this sub