UK employers struggle with worst labour shortage since 1997

[ruffneck23]

What I've always hated about recruiters, for many years now, is they set you up, you do the interview and if you don't get it they don't even have the courtesy to make a 2 min phone call / email to say you haven't got it.

 

[xenon]

And yet, there's never a shortage of recruitment agents...

 

[StoneRoad]

Well, there is certainly a shortage of certain skills ...

I have another vacancy for a skilled joiner & a general restoration technician - and I would like a brush pusher & tea/coffee maker as well.
Unfortunately, I can't pay London scale rates as most of the people I'm working for are trying to get expensive work done as economically as possible. Recent tenders for work have been rejected as "too expensive" ...
The other main problem is a rapid increase in materials availability & costs, timber is especially difficult at the moment.
It doesn't help that the process can take months - if not years - between the initial enquiry and the project actually starting. Most projects take over a year to 18 months, and space / staffing mean we can only work on a couple of projects at a time. So, part way through a project I have to be most of the way through getting the next one lined up ...

 

[Elpenor]

BB1 has just got a job in a pizza place, she's 17. The rate is £4.62 an hour. Fucking pisstake, a five hour shit, 6pm to 11pm gets her £23.10. She must pay NI out of that too.

Doh! - five hour SHIFT!

They won’t pay any NI on the first £184 earned per week or £797 if paid monthly

 

[The39thStep]

Here in Spain, and according to friends who live in Portugal, France, Poland, there's been a lot of issues due to covid. In none of these countries there are no shortages of food in shops, nor problems in supply lines, etc which are being experienced in the UK. What is the biggest difference? Brexit.

Not sure that whole sections of the economies of Spain, Portugal, France and Poland relied on UK labour at the minimum rate which then ended with Brexit tbh.

 

[Sprocket.]

I retired recently along with four colleagues who left over recent months. So my last employer is currently trying to recruit fifteen engineers, electrical or mechanical bias who are willing to train up to a set standard in the other discipline. Along with a decent rate and benefits. They cannot get any interest. Sadly three of the best engineers I have worked with recently, two Polish and one Czech electrician have all moved to jobs across the EU.
Funny how we have another shortage of labour, although Covid has had a massive impact too.

 

[Anju]

BB1 has just got a job in a pizza place, she's 17. The rate is £4.62 an hour. Fucking pisstake, a five hour shit, 6pm to 11pm gets her £23.10. She must pay NI out of that too.

Doh! - five hour SHIFT!

Wow, I was earning £5 an hour when I was 15 in 1984.

Our younger daughter, 20, just got a part time job at some noodle place in the 02. She was the only applicant over 18 at her group interview. I think they're paying them £8.91 an hour but as our daughter is older she gets 19 pence an hour more, ooh. 20 minute break every 6 hours, though last week she had a 2 hour shift then 45 minutes later a 5 hour shift so no break. Not that they get paid breaks anyway. Can't wear the uniform to travel to work but can't clock in until in uniform. They have to clock out before getting changed to go home and before having their break. Told how to stand, have to look happy and there's no downtime at all. Despite all the on trend language and team building games managers seem to be the same shit standard they were at 30 years ago. She was told "that's not how ladies stand" a few days ago.

We've suggested she causes as much disruption as possible and leaves as soon as university starts again.

Maybe I was just lucky but although hard work has always been expected wherever I've worked there was always some time to fuck about outside any normal break time.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Imagine how shit it would be if people who actually knew what they were doing ran the country. The current administration's bumbling incompetence is the only thing stopping us descending faster into an authoritarian hellhole

Fair point.

 

[Sue]

Wow, I was earning £5 an hour when I was 15 in 1984.

What were you doing? My first job (bakery/tearoom) in 1986/7 was £1.29 an hour which was pretty standard.

Even in 1991, I was earning £3 an hour which was the standard brewery wage for pubs.

 

[Pickman's model]

What were you doing? My first job (bakery/tearoom) in 1986/7 was £1.29 an hour which was pretty standard.

Even in 1991, I was earning £3 an hour which was the standard brewery wage for pubs.

yeh in '92 i was paid £3.01 an hour, which is about £6.35 now apparently.

 

[Anju]

What were you doing? My first job (bakery/tearoom) in 1986/7 was £1.29 an hour which was pretty standard.

Even in 1991, I was earning £3 an hour which was the standard brewery wage for pubs.

I was a van assistant helping deliver furniture, reading the A-Z and falling asleep occasionally. I had friends who earned similar amounts. Maybe they weren't being truthful but I had a couple of friends who worked for similar money at Bejams.

 

[andysays]

My first part time job while still at school was working in McDonalds. I think my basic pay was £1.20 per hour, possibly more for evenings and weekends.

That was 1981, age 17.

 

[Anju]

yeh in '92 i was paid £3.01 an hour, which is about £6.35 now apparently.

Just checked and that was equivalent to average London wages that year.

Think I was lucky to find that particular company. They manufactured and sold fairly expensive furniture. A lot of stuff was done as piece work and the rates were so good that a couple of people started their own job shares as they could earn a decent wage in 3 days.

 

[Sue]

I was a van assistant helping deliver furniture, reading the A-Z and falling asleep occasionally. I had friends who earned similar amounts. Maybe they weren't being truthful but I had a couple of friends who worked for similar money at Bejams.

TBH, I reckon your daughter earning over nine quid an hour at 20 working in a restaurant is pretty reasonable in the scheme of things. I've friend who's a TA working with SEN kids who earns about that.

(Yes I know, race to the bottom, folk should get paid more etc.)

 

[Anju]

TBH, I reckon your daughter earning over nine quid an hour at 20 working in a restaurant is pretty reasonable in the scheme of things. I've friend who's a TA working with SEN kids who earns about that.

(Yes I know, race to the bottom, folk should get paid more etc.)

Yes, it's OK for her as it's just spending money. It's more the desperate attempts to make sure every second is spent following every rule. They even tell them how to stand. Maybe that's normal in hospitality roles and I probably get more annoyed listening to her stories of the day than she does experiencing it herself. I've only ever worked for smaller employers, either nice people or people who are so unpleasant it's a pleasure pissing them off.
.

 

[Edie]

My 18yo lad is currently working as a zero hour delivery driver. He works 10 hours and takes home £50. Thats £5 an hour (he doesn’t take breaks). He starts his proper job next month doing a sales apprenticeship. He takes home a grand after tax, which is about fifty quid a day too, but he’ll work 8 hours with a lunch break. Plus he gets commission I think.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

There does seem to be a real paradox regarding jobs out there at the moment. On the one hand the press is full of stories about staff shortages and anecdotally I have seen quite a few signs in the windows of shops, pubs, restaurants etc. Yet, I have also heard quite a few similar stories about the experience of people with decent experience that want work but can barely get the courtesy of a reply to an application let alone an interview.

I've even been ghosted after a couple of job interviews!

 

[SpookyFrank]

And yet, there's never a shortage of recruitment agents...

Never a shortage of useless cunts earning more than I ever will

 

[StoneRoad]

And yet, there's never a shortage of recruitment agents...

RA's tend to be right cockwombles from my point of view, I'm sorry to say.
They were bad enough when I was looking for work [15-20 years ago] and I don't suppose they've improved.

Further to my post ^^^ we've tried various agencies in the past.
Who have been given quite detailed job/people specifications ... but still manage to send time-wasters without the key qualifications - or, in the case of one agency, people from the other end of the country.
The absolute worst for that was one of the so-called "job coaches" at our local JC+ when they were having a crackdown - telling claimants they needed to apply for at least X jobs a week, whatever the job was, to apply for it ... normally, our liaison there would weed out the useless toerags.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I earned £5-6 per hour temping with Blue Arrow in the 90s before I got my first "proper" job. Even then it was a bit of a pisstake and only worked if you had cheap rent from living at home. I learned slightly too late to go with agencies that did work for the London property firms, who'd pay 50-100% more, plus they would always offer you work outside of the agency if you were any good to avoid their cut.

The Blue Arrow office jobs were quite interesting though - they did lots with probation and community service, and once I even got to type up notes from an international organised crime conference. (A police conference I hasten to add.)

 

[MickiQ]

Every time Evil American Megacorp hired someone via a RA (and this was a few years ago) they paid the agency the equivalent of 15% of the recruits salary (And EAM would only use them for relatively higher paying jobs starting at £40K-50K on up) Obviously they got had advertising/staffing costs of their own and they got diddely squat for any candidate not hired but it always struck me as a lot of money for the amount of work they did bit like Estate Agents for people.

 

[ruffneck23]

The last job I had (self employed contracted to qubegb) we got after probation £129 per day, cool eh?

Then you have to pay £120 a week for rent of van and tools, pay you own fuel unless you do over 75 miles a day then they give you 16p a mile over the 75 , £1000 excess on the van for any accident , if you got a blow out, £235 to fix, contracted to do 9.5 hours a day, but you have to take an unpaid lunch of 30 mins taking it up to 10 hours a day, when we joined were told never working in a Sunday, then they changed that to one in 6, then you have to pay tax and ni, some weeks you work 60 hours with no over time rate and you end up earning less than min wage but as you’re self employed you can’t do fuck all, I’ve said this on other threads but I went off for 13 weeks with back issues so I couldn’t drive and they still charged £70 a week for the van I couldn’t use, then terminated my contract when I asked for fuel to get out and do my route.
And... for the first 9 months you are tied in to pay for your training £1000 until 3 months, £600 until 6 months etc

so exploitation is still at large now and I’m 50....

utter utter cunts , quite relived when they fired me tbh

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I definitely think it's got worse in the last couple of decades. So many more ways now to rip people off.

 

[Sprocket.]

Exploitation never goes out of fashion.

 

[Elpenor]

I’ve seen various sharp practices by employers in my time working in payroll. They may be standard for the employers industry but they’re still shit

A few examples:
requiring retail employees to buy stock to wear as uniform and then
deducting the cost from wages

requiring retail makeup employees to buy the companies branded makeup brushes and deducting the cost from wages

deducting £10 for a lost employee pas

deducting the cost of compulsory training courses from an employee within 12 months

 

[ruffneck23]

Qubegb say I owe them over a grand for the van and I really hope they take me to court over it and il expose them and may even go to the press

 

[SpookyFrank]

The last job I had (self employed contracted to qubegb) we got after probation £129 per day , cool eh ? Then you have to pay £120 a week for rent of van and tools, pay you own fuel unless you do over 75 miles a day then they give you 16p a mile over the 75 , £1000 excess on the van for any accident , if you got a blow out , £235 to fix , contracted to do 9.5 hours a day , but you have to take an unpaid lunch of 30 mins taking it up to 10 hours a day, when we joined were told never working in a Sunday , then they changed that to one in 6 , then you have to pay tax and ni , some weeks you work 60 hours with no over time rate and you end up earning less than min wage but as you’re self employed you can’t do fuck all , I’ve said this on other threads but I went off for 13 weeks with back issues so I couldn’t drive and they still charged £70 a week for the van I couldn’t use , then terminated my contract when I asked for fuel to get out and do my route.
And... for the first 9 months you are tied in to pay for your training £1000 until 3 months , £600 until 6 months etc

so exploration is still at large now and I’m 50....

utter utter cunts , quite relived when they fired me tbh

How that is 'self employment' I've no fucking idea. Mind you up until last year (when I was shitcanned with immediate effect due to lockdown) I was 'self employed' working for a charity and still many of the same clawback tactics were used; I had to pay for my own tools, training, insurance, first aid certification, DBS etc but was still told I couldn't work for other people.

 

[SpookyFrank]

A few examples:
requiring retail employees to buy stock to wear as uniform and then
deducting the cost from wages

Yeah a mate of mine had this. And they had to be dressed top-to-toe in stuff from the latest lines, and the product lines were changed every three months. They got a 20% discount though

I think it's pretty standard now. Can't be legal, yet it somehow is.

 

[The39thStep]

dessiato
This is a short but fascinating article on lorry drivers conditions in some EU countries , not all. There have been some minor reforms in Portugal and Spain ie drivers do not unload wagons as part of their work and Holland where unions have agreed a deal.

 

[ruffneck23]

but was still told I couldn't work for other people.

oh yes, this too... oh and I forgot business insurance too, the more I think about it, I realise how desperate I was and how they exploited it, I'm sure there's other bits to add but I'm winding myself up even thinking about it.