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Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

203 points by gixo 5y ago

neals 5y ago
If you want to create jobs, start a pandemic. Over a hunderd thousand jobs were created for testing, contact tracing and vaccinations in my small European country.
- alexgmcm 5y ago
  If you want to do it old-school style you can go out and break some windows[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- playcache 5y ago
  It has much more to do with ending Freedom of Movement with the EU. In this respect Brexit has worked (although who knows the long term implications). Basically labour demands have gone through the roof and its now an employee market. My aunt who is a hotel cleaner just got a £500 monthly increase and has been offered a retention bonus. Lorry / truck drivers are constantly being approached to switch jobs with higher payouts. The rest of the market is getting a feel of what its like to be a software engineer.
- nvilcins 5y ago
  Those jobs are temporary. On the other hand how many jobs were made redundant as a side-effect of the pandemic? Catering moving a lot towards delivery, people realizing they can actually work from home, etc.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Interestingly unemployment is up (4.6% vs 3.8% in 2018). I doubt that will last long though.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  You can create jobs to do anything. E.g. build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I’d be building solar power stations and nuclear ones to create jobs and reduce carbon emissions longer term.
- jpxw 5y ago
  If we’re going to be that cynical, we could just pay people to dig holes in the ground and fill them back up again. We don’t do that, for good reason.
mysterydip 5y ago
There's a fast food restaurant near my house that is trying to fill vacancies at $20/hr.
- question002 5y ago
  There's one in my neighborhood that's paying less then that and still multiple people work there.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  There are quite a few cafes and restaurants near us that have closed or reduced their opening hours. Our nearest farm shop has removed what used to be a thriving cafe. I get the impression a lot of these service businesses just won't be viable in a higher wage economy.
- ahtihn 5y ago
  McDonald's has been paying $20/hour in Switzerland for a long time. Given how rich the US is as a country, I always found it surprising that minimum wage there is so incredibly low.
  - adventured 5y ago
    Keep in mind the minimum wage also varies by state. The state minimum wages overrule the federal minimum wage when eclipsed (so if the federal rate is $7.25, and Maryland state is $12, then you have to pay $12 as a business in Maryland). It's probably ideal that the minimum wage is state based, with a lower baseline provided by the federal, given the extreme variance in prosperity and income levels between the states. It'd be like Germany and Greece or Lithuania having the same minimum wage, if you had Massachusetts or Connecticut with the same minimum wage as West Virginia or Arkansas (two of the poorest states). GDP per capita (loose reference for income potential) in New York state is $90,000 per year ($87k in Massachusetts). It's $40k to $45k in Mississippi / Arkansas / West Virginia by comparison. So for reference that $90k New York figure is higher than Norway and comparable to Switzerland. And the Mississippi figure is a bit above Italy. Base wages just can't rationally be the same in Italy and Switzerland for common service jobs. Almost nobody earns the federal minimum wage in the US. It doesn't matter very much at the present rate and could be easily, safely raised with minimum labor disruption. The federal minimum wage hasn't been relevant for 15-20 years, because the market left it behind. To push the lower tier wages higher, the US would need to set the federal minimum wage up near $15 these days. That's the floor that Amazon (via their fulfillment centers) has placed on the labor market as they compete to fill their huge need for labor, pulling it away from companies like Walmart. You can now earn $15 working at Walmart, Target, Amazon, grocery stores and a lot of convenience stores or similar type service businesses with essentially zero labor skill or experience.
stayfrosty420 5y ago
this is good for wages but I am concerned about the resulting inflationary pressure.
- question002 5y ago
  Why?
  - sgt 5y ago
    Why not?
    - jansan 5y ago
      You are both right.
- yunohn 5y ago
  I think this illustrates the problem with the modern capitalistic society we’ve built for ourselves: “I’m happy wages are going up, but I’m sad it’ll mean my spending power will go down”
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  There is always some inflationary pressure when inequality is reduced. For example, very few can support nannies and home servants like they could in the past (and like in India now), when poor people’s wages were so low that they would give up their life to support anyone that owned land. The only way to prevent inflation is with technology and productivity, for example, people today could have home servants in the form of robots if that technology existed, but it currently does not, because the problem is currently extremely difficult given humanity’s existing tool set.
  - artificialLimbs 5y ago
    Eliminating minimum wage would also prevent inflation.
have_faith 5y ago
There's a huge amount of people holidaying within the UK instead of going abroad. I wonder how many millions (billions?) are being captured in the internal market that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Definitely part of the fuel driving the economic rebound, lots of people's holiday savings being released locally, and the middle class has generally been increasing their savings pots over the lockdowns.
- Clepsydra 5y ago
  "lots of people's holiday savings being released locally" True. But the UK have missed out of millions of foreign tourists. https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactontheuktravelandtourismindustry/2021-02-15 https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindus...
  - stayfrosty420 5y ago
    Based on the extortionate cost of holidaying in the UK right now these stats are relatively surprising
  - have_faith 5y ago
    I haven't looked at the data but I imagine foreign tourists mostly go to London and a few venture out to nearby hotspots. People within the UK seem to be branching out to every half-beauty spot we have in every corner of the Isles.
    - alistairSH 5y ago
      Sample of 1 but my last 3 vacations in the UK have skipped London. My impression is anybody visiting for more than a week will likely do a few days in London then move on to someplace else (of my friends, that’s usually Scotland for camping/hiking).
    - retube 5y ago
      Clearly you have never been to Oxford, Bath, York, Edinburgh, Lake District, Cornwall etc etc which are teeming with visitors from the US, China, Japan and many other countries during the summer...
elevenoh 5y ago
Salary increases are seriously lagging inflation.. (especially true if you use a more meaningful inflation metric than CPI) There's less & less incentive to be an employee in the traditional sense. What I'm hearing more & more: Pay me in crypto. Give me equity. Else I'm not interested.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Is there another metric?
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    CPIH for example in the UK which nominally includes owner-occupier housing costs that aren't part of normal CPI but doesn't contain the elephant in the room which is the increase in house prices.
  - M2Ys4U 5y ago
    There's RPI, I guess
- IMTDb 5y ago
  How does the currency you are paid with changes anything (apart from tax evasion) ?
  - jcbrand 5y ago
    So you're willing to be paid in Venezuelan Bolivars?
  - elevenoh 5y ago
    Being paid in fiat means my default income stream is a depreciating one. I'd prefer to be paid in an evolving currency, one emerging out of maximal open-competition. Why? Nothing breeds a better result.
    - quickthrower2 5y ago
ndr 5y ago
"We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley and chair of British Apples and Pears. At her orchard, harvest has just started. It must be done quickly and requires many pairs of hands. Ali had to turn to specialist recruitment firms and has brought in seasonal workers from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia. What's a reasonable prediction here? Higher wages and more expensive fruits? A bunch of farms going bust?
- kubb 5y ago
  Work camps where exploited eastern europeans live in horrible conditions, their rights are violated, they get underpaid and a substantial portion of their wage goes to the agencies acting as middle men.
  - plantain 5y ago
    Are you describing the old system or the new system? Because that's what the UK had before, and it's what the Australian system they're trying to emulate produces too.
    - kubb 5y ago
      The old system isn’t that much different from the new system is it? Just the agencies will get paid more for handling the legal side and logistics of importing the workers.
    - swarnie 5y ago
      That's the old system. People would come in, live on site and be feed on site, work hard for 3 months (maybe moving sites as demand came and went) then leave and go back home. The 3 months of hard work and bad conditions was worth it because of the buying power the wages had comparatively back home. UK people simply wont put up with that because they have to use the wages in the UK.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
api 5y ago
Good. Wages must be forced up. You can’t have a modern economy without a capitalized middle class. Real estate is so ludicrous we need quite a bit of inflation to make it reasonable again. The alternative would be a deflationary crash where real estate crashes and obliterates everyone’s home equity, but that is far more painful to virtually everyone.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
  What prevents landlords from simply soaking up the wage increases then?
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    They might but it may not push up house prices
    - adrianb 5y ago
      How so? If these days a house listed for x gets offers at x+10%, after average wages increase it will receive offers at x+20%. Is there any historical precedent of house prices not rising faster than inflation, absent external factors? I think a major correction of house prices can happen in two ways: - economic catastrophe (everyone's unemployed) / war / natural disaster / ... - we wouldn't want to buy a house anyway in that case; - major increase of interest rates or minimum deposit required - we wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage in that case.
      - quickthrower2 5y ago
        High inflation -> higher internet rates -> lower income multiples for loans + higher rental yields to support interest rates.
  - Levitz 5y ago
    What prevents landlords from getting any arbitrary amount of money from their tenants? I think this is a different problem regarding housing.
question002 5y ago
Hey look a bit of people trying to push their agendas by reporting seemingly unsustainable economic conditions. What a great forum for debate!!!
question002 5y ago
Love how someone suggests we start another pandemic and that doesn't get flagged but I get flagged.
torcete 5y ago
I was actually talking about this with some friends yesterday night. We didn't know whether is was an effect of Brexit, the pandemic or both of them combined.
nly 5y ago
Housing is anything from a third to 50% of the average UK earners take home income. Median house price to median income ratios are at historically high levels[0], and rents are now also rising[1] Either wages need to rise or house prices need to fall. [0] If you look at somewhere mundane like Essex the median 'affordability ratio', as measured by the Office of National Statistics ( https://tinyurl.com/x5jatcx8 https://tinyurl.com/x5jatcx8 ), was 4.5 in 2000 but is now north of 10. And yes, low interest rates help with monthly affordability but house prices have gone up ~4 fold in the last 20 years while the multiple of your income banks will lend has not, and peoples capacity to save a deposit that is 4x bigger has not. [1] https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-9969349/Rents-rise-13-years-tenants-flock-UK-cities.html https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-9969349...
- pibechorro 5y ago
  Inflation will make any increase in wages meaningless. It will also further drive investment into housing to escape the free falling cash. The answer is no lockdowns, no bailouts, and no quantitative money printing to oblivion. Let the everything bubble pop and start over with sound first principles. We will get there, but not before politicians make it worse and delay the inevitable defaults.
  - nly 5y ago
    - Boris Johnson (the British Prime Minister) sold his London family home in 2019 for £3.75M after having rented it out for £2000/week (just under 4x the national average income) while living in his Government provided accommodation in his role as Foreign Secretary (2016-2018).[0] - Property prices have shot up 10% during the pandemic, bolstered in part by the Government cutting stamp duty on sales. - A few days ago the Government raised National Insurance (which is an income tax) on all workers to pay for social care while protecting property wealth with a contribution cap. Nobody in power is popping the property asset bubble in the UK any time soon. It's a sacred cow. I'm in the top 2% of earners by income in the UK and I'm still completely priced out of wrt to buying a modest family home (or flat) a humane, commutable distance of central London. Price/Income ratios are too high even for me because I'm competing with my peers. It's a supply problem, and a problem of foreign investment and bad incentive schemes. [0] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-clinging-rent-free-12949436 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-clingin...
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
This reminds me of David Graeber's story on how during one of the pandemics, a plague killed so many people in the UK that those who left got rich by inheriting land and by increasing wages, as there was no one to work. In the case of UK there was a superstorm of Brexit, IR35 change, and pandemic all in one - adding to the issue for employers. But in a way, I do not see this as an issue but a chance to equalize wealth. Either they will reduce their profit and increase wages, automate or go bust. Is it good or bad? We will see over a longer period of time...
- jenscow 5y ago
  Or just increase wages and increase prices.
  - NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
    Second part is not that simple in global economy if you have Chinese cheap labor as direct competitors especially in the food industry where margins for farmers are already too low. I would recommend Jeremy Clarkson - "Clarkson's Farm" first year of operation on a 300 acres farm made a yearly profit of £144 :)
    - dageshi 5y ago
      I might be wrong, but I thought he was factoring in all the equipment he bought in that first year in that calculation? So next year you wouldn't have that cost.
      - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
        Isn't it standard practice to amortize the cost of capital goods over their lifetime?
        tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        If it's after tax profit they were talking about then you can claim an annual investment allowance of £1 million. https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/annual-investment-allowance https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/annual-investment-allo...
fergie 5y ago
The labour squeeze is placing upward pressure on wages, which is pumping more money into the economy which is in turn exacerbating the labour squeeze. Wages have been stagnant in the UK for too long. In the last decade or so certain sectors of the economy (hospitality, agriculture, nursing) have been too dependent on a vulnerable "serf class" of easily exploitable workers. That workers have got more money to spend is a really good thing for themselves and for business.
- jenscow 5y ago
  But if there aren't enough workers to give the pay increase to, then what? Reducing the pool of workers (Brexit) doesn't sold the wage problem. If a production line requires 30 people, and there are only 20... increasing their wages won't help. It won't encourage additional staff, as company B to Z is doing the same, and people aren't out of work because the wages are too low. Increasing minimum wage is the better way to do it.
  - fergie 5y ago
    Good question. You have to understand that "labour shortage" is code for "I cant find workers for the price that I would like". Clearly there isn't (and can't be) and actual shortage of workers, there can only be increased competition between employers for available workers. Its worth noting that in recent history, the times when democracies have been closest to actual labour shortages (post WWI and WWII) have in fact been correlated with economic booms.
    - jenscow 5y ago
      The pool of workers available to UK companies has just been significantly and suddenly reduced. There is an actual shortage - the number of vacancies has exceeded the number of unemployed, without even taking skill into consideration.
  - Levitz 5y ago
    The kind of company that can survive in an economy paying X doesn't necessarily survive if they later have to pay 120% of X. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing either, that kind of company probably wouldn't have existed to begin with if inequality wasn't brutal nowadays.
durnygbur 5y ago
> Ali had to turn to specialist recruitment firms and has brought in seasonal workers from Poland I ain't no picking anything! Sent your daughters over here, now we want some easy sex for free! (after charging half of their salary for staying in a moldy hut).
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
When a few companies or industries can’t find enough labor, the solution is simple: Raise wages to attract a larger percentage of the labor pool. When every company and industry is struggling to hire, raising wages is still necessary but it no longer fixes the bigger problem. Those higher wages aren’t producing more labor, they’re just convincing employees with jobs to switch to other jobs. Switching jobs creates a vacancy in the old position. One job opening filled, one job opening created. Net zero. The pandemic shook a lot of people out of the labor market. Everything from people who were on the verge of retirement anyway to people who were forced to stay home with the kids because schools and daycares were closed. Until labor market participation returns to pre-pandemic levels, the labor shortages will continue. Employees win in the short term as companies have no choice but to raise wages to fill positions. The flip side is that inflation will certainly follow as rising wages give people more money to spend (demand up) while labor shortages drive supply down. Demand up, supply down means prices go up. Which ironically could be the impetus that gives people who left the labor market no choice but to return to work: When everything is getting more expensive, people may have no choice but to return to the labor market to earn enough to support their families. It’s going to be interesting to see this settle.
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  It isn't net zero people can join and leave the labor participation pool, which has been decreasing for awhile now[0]. Higher wages could convince people to join the labor market. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
- EGreg 5y ago
  Labor shortages don’t necessarily drive supply down — this is going to lead to a boom in automation. Those automated jobs aren’t coming back. We need to phase in a UBI even if it $1 a month for now.
- s0rce 5y ago
  Many companies don't have sufficient margins to raise wages. Hopefully this isn't confused as me endorsing subpar wages, simply that those business can't be sustained or will just endlessly be looking for someone willing to work for cheap because hiring someone for more will actually cost them money. They may be better of turning away some customers vs. hiring someone for a higher wage to support more demand.
retrac98 5y ago
The UK really shat the bed since the 2008 financial crisis, huh.
jurmous 5y ago
I am curious when the UK will be less strict with worker visas again for European workers after Brexit. It seems the UK has way more economic issues during this phase of the pandemic than mainland EU. On the mainland there are no empty supermarkets, or farms not being able to harvest because of labour shortages. So it seems to be a Brexit issue. But if they allow more European workers again, what was then the point of Brexit? I would hate to be in the shoes of Boris Johnson. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/25/business-leaders-call-for-relaxation-of-post-brexit-visa-rules https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/25/business-le...
- sgt101 5y ago
  I think they will wait for the furlough scheme to unwind in the next three or so months before making any moves.
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  > It seems the UK has way more economic issues during this phase of the pandemic than mainland EU. Tangentially related to this, I have heard little mention about how the timing of the pandemic may have been an absolute godsend and a lifesaver for the current British government. The consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions on the international economy and world trade have made it the perfect scapegoat to blame for the impact of no-deal Brexit.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I don't think they can. Anything related to the EU is toxic within the current government, including relaxing immigration from Europe. Nothing will change unless we get a new government.
throwthere 5y ago
I guess on the one hand businesses aren't paying enough. But I mean, business owners aren't all just evil conspiring anti-labor types. They're in it for the profits and would pay more if they could eek out a reasonable return on investment. On a deeper level, you have all these zombie-businesses now supported by government handouts and terribly low interest rates. The zombie businesses soak up labor for relatively less-productive pursuits.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  Zombie businesses required to pay more for labour go bust. Raising the cost of labour is a far more reliable way of eliminating zombies than attempting to raise interest costs. No business can operate without labour.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > Zombie businesses required to pay more for labour go bust. They may survive for a long period of time in a perma low interest rate environment where debt has become cheap and stocks are highly inflated. Low interest rates, as well as enabling debt accumulation, also float the stock market, which provides shareholder dilution-based funding to businesses that otherwise would have far more severe problems. Uber is an ongoing example of that. Previously they abused venture capitalist institutional money to get by, now they're living as a parasite on shareholders (who are hoping that something changes about the financials in their business, some day, some how). Tech hasn't had a good 'ol brush fire clean out of garbage in a long time now. Companies like Snowflake that are bleeding enormous sums of money, would collapse in a traditional 1990-1991 or 2001-2002 style recession. Snowflake is similar to any number of supposedly fast growing, huge loss-making companies like Exodus Communications from the dotcom era, that imploded when the music stopped (and so many of their business clients pulled back on spending). Snowflake's sales over the last four quarters: $851 million, their operating loss over that time: $775 million. They would instantly shatter if a real recession hit, the stock would drop by 95% rapidly. There is a lot of that garbage floating around the tech space these days, because we haven't had any good clearing fires in a long, long time.
locallost 5y ago
My first thought was the pandemic and Brexit, but according to the article the employment numbers are back to where they were pre pandemic. So it's only Brexit? A lot of seasonal workers left before the pandemic and are not coming back?
- sgt101 5y ago
  There's 1.5m folks on fulough so this stat isn't that meaningful.
- jlokier 5y ago
  For the Brexit-related component of worker shortage: It's a mix of workers leaving and choosing not to come back, many of them full-year not just seasonal, as well as workers that would like to come back temporarily to plug the gap, but aren't permitted even for skills-shortage roles. Brexit and changing social attitudes have indeed put many off the UK, making other EU countries more attractive destinations. But there are still some people who would return temporarily for seasonal work if it was permitted. This is not just the "low-paid, unskilled fruit picker" types of jobs, that are sometimes headlines. It is also skilled jobs that require considerable training and are paid well. Example: Industry has been crying out to allow truck drivers from the EU to come to the UK, under the same "skills shortage" short-term visas that are allowed for some other sectors. A number of these involve driving routes on both sides of the UK-EU border, too, so it would make sense from that perspective as well. The government has said no, they must hire British workers for those roles. But they know it isn't possible in the short term, as it takes about 9 months of training. The government saying "just hire British workers today" when they know perfectly well that's not possible to comply with, is typical for this government in many areas, imho. The shortage is obvious when shopping now. Common items you think of as in perpetual oversupply are currently out of stock, from normally well-managed supermarkets. For example, I can't buy any size pack of Coke Zero cans for delivery from the biggest supermarket Tesco. This is a popular item in the UK, and Tesco have a reputation for great logistics. Same for about a third of the other items on my regular items list. That's due to the truck driver shortage. Wages have increased tremendously (about 3x I think) for those roles this year. It's now a decent wage, more than a lot of people are earning, and they still can't be filled. So there's a genuine skills shortage in the UK, and people outside would do the jobs even temporarily while British workers were training, if it were permitted.
softwaredoug 5y ago
If only there were people willing to move to your country from their current bad situation, so eager for citizenship they’d take on any job.. it’s almost an arrangement too good to be true
- throw84848 5y ago
  > so eager for citizenship they’d take on any job You disgust me for wishing we were exploiting people like this.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  That's not what people voted for in 2016.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    Brexit as implemented isn't what most people voted for in 2016 either. Just ask them. Others have. The more common answer is some variation on "I didn't vote for this Brexit". Particularly entertaining are the business owners now going bankrupt who voted for Brexit, now saying "I didn't know this is what Brexit meant when I voted for it". I'd also argue that the fundamental, defining feature of democracy is that the people most immediately affected by an issue vote on the issue. So it's not democracy when the people most affected are not included in the vote. That's fake democracy, where the foxes vote who to have for dinner and the other animals don't get a say, but it's what we have, so here we are.
    - GordonS 5y ago
      And one of my common responses is "well, this is the Brexit I voted against". Many of these consequences were completely predicable.
  - softwaredoug 5y ago
    They may not have voted for it, but its still a valid policy position to advocate for :)
vxland 5y ago
Europe has evaded classical market economy by importing more people who'd work for lower wages at the slightest hint of any labor shortage. Pre-immigration such people would be called scabs. Now that you have Brexit, raise the wages. That's why people voted for it in an unusual recognition of their self-interests.
- swarnie 5y ago
  If you fancy annoying people go to a UK subreddit and claim Brexit was about workers rights, workers compensation and was humanitarian issue to help those most in need. Hilarious results will follow.
  - dageshi 5y ago
    Only masochists go near that sub, it's pretty much the most miserable place on the entire internet.
    - swarnie 5y ago
      Which one? UK, UKpol, and even AskUK all creep there on occasions.
      - dageshi 5y ago
        UK UKpol is not far off nowadays either, that one didn't used to be so terrible. Never really read AskUK but I don't doubt it's similar. The only way forward is to keep it casual.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        Not sure how /uk works, but /Canada is basically made up of people whose own metro/regional/provincial subreddits don’t have a critical mass, which basically makes it representative of low-population density areas in low-population density provinces.
        5y ago
fallingfrog 5y ago
I’m not sure why none of the popular narratives are considering that this is just demographics- the boomers are aging out of the workforce. This pushes up the cost of labor due to supply and demand. Which is a good thing, if you’re not a boomer. But it’s going to constrain gdp growth.
- regularfry 5y ago
  The baby boom was smaller in the UK, and a slightly odd shape. It did happen, but not to the same extent as in the US.
Zigurd 5y ago
Not every posted open position will be filled. Some of those postings are the equivalent of lowball bids. They are opportunistic. Some are critical and must be filled at any price. The vacancies number does not capture the difference. I wonder how that shakes out in retrospect. Jobs that never got filled were not real vacancies just as "I'll give you five dollars for that car" does not make me a customer.
neilwilson 5y ago
There are 1.034 million vacancies and 3.277 million people without work that want it. There isn't a shortage of labour. There is a shortage of decent pay and conditions. Firms are going to have to get over their cheap labour obsession or close and leave the market to those firms that can.
- luckylion 5y ago
  I have a neighbor who is quite happy with what the government pays him while he's not working. I'm sure he could be motivated to work by offering larger salaries, but they'd have to be raised by at least 100% to convince him to go from 0 hours/week to 40 hours/week. I'm not sure there are 3.277 million people without work who want it.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    He must be particularly frugal then as the government doesn't pay you much to sit on your backside. https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance
    - luckylion 5y ago
      I'm in Germany, but it's a similar amount (+ rent, internet, utilities, health insurance etc). He has the basics like a cell phone, flat screen and playstation and seems to be content with it.
      - effingwewt 5y ago
        There will always be people willing to accept the bare minimum. That doesn't have anything to do with the fact that those who do work are still in poverty, with no way out. Also many have never had a single vacation in their lives. Some just needed the break. e-spells
        luckylion 5y ago
EGreg 5y ago
The market for jobs isn’t clearing. Jobs growth is weak and yet there are many vacancies. Does this mean people are finally holding out for higher pay? The goals of UBI have been demonstrated? And we have barely given out a UBI, only a few stimulus checks. Perhaps people got a taste of working from home and companies need to allow more remote work. Either way, I do not see this as a bad thing.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >only a few stimulus checks The article is about the UK, there have been no stimulus cheques.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
How does the global job vacancy market look? Here in the US, a lot of local restaurants and retail stores are hiring; practically every place you enter has a NOW HIRING sign out front. I'd say immigration would be a huge boon to many of these small businesses, but when I spoke to one restaurant owner, he bemoaned the labor shortage and a $15 minimum wage. It'd kill his prices, he'd lose customers. Then, in other rants, he's using all the Fox News lines about stealing our jobs, keep them out of our country, caravans, ugh. He doesn't connect the dots and see how pivotal immigration is to the economy. Either you have more babies, increase productivity, increase efficiency, or you allow immigrants in to make up the gap in the babies we're not having anymore. But no, the color of their skin, the difference of their culture, is enough to make economics less important than identity to the right wing in the USA.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
flerchin 5y ago
Jobs only stay vacant when the compensation is not market clearing. In many cases, the compensation for the marginal jobs will need to include childcare or training.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
What are these jobs? Human health and hospitality? Then they go on and list fruit pickers? And retail stores hiring staff for the Xmas onset? Are they kidding? These are temporary jobs, probably not previously posted as done underhanded, but now there's no fruit pickers for cheap and they seek more official channels. And drivers, yes obviously drivers to deliver the aforementioned goods. Covid, Brexit, good luck finding the fruit pickers. This is not an economic recovery, this is harvest and Xmas time, nothing fundamental has changed. As for the housing prices, indeed, as you would say in England, in "the north" , you get double the house for half the price, and even better quality. It's not London though, and there's not too many jobs.
- ourlordcaffeine 5y ago
  I believe the vacancies are mostly bar staff, carers, farm labour and haulage. There are a bunch of delusional pub landlords in my city who complain about the lack of staff and claim stuff like "today's youth are entitled and lazy" - but apparently failed to notice local supermarkets literally pay more with fewer hours.
wing-_-nuts 5y ago
My question is when are we getting project loom? https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Main https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Main
dbetteridge 5y ago
Related discussion happening on reddit about this, personally i've already noticed an uptick in wages for Software Engineers in London and an increase in remote roles. https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/pivruo/the_10_jobs_where_people_are_needed_most_as_uk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/pivruo/the_1...
- GordonS 5y ago
  I've noticed a big uptick in availability of senior roles (e.g. Architect) recently, but also a big uptick in salary - I've had several recruiters contacting me over the past month for senior roles in the range of £80-95k, and every one was OK with remote work too. Never seen anything like it.
  - dbetteridge 5y ago
    Yep exactly the same here, non-stop recruiter mail on linkedin since Nov 2020 (when I moved to my current role from one of these). Senior roles in the 80-100k range, a few 'team lead' and fintech's looking around 140-160k (these were much more office focused though).
boulos 5y ago
Hmm. Am I reading this correctly? There are 1M openings across the UK (population about 60M) and 10M across the US [1] (population 300M-ish). There are twice as many openings per person in the US. (I also don't assume the demographics are wildly out of step). [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/job-offers https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/job-offers
CivBase 5y ago
I'm not so sure about the whole "just pay workers more" solution every talks about. If that were viable for many businesses, don't you think they'd choose to do that over closing their doors? A business owner has to consider what kind of wage increases would even be needed for a short-term hiring boom and whether they could sustain that increase in the long term. A case could be made that some businesses are not viable if they can't afford to pay market rates for labor, so they should close. However, the market rates for labor seem to be in fluctuation due to the ongoing pandemic and associated government responses. It looks to me like many businesses are still just trying to ride the storm out and hope things look better for them on the other side, hence many businesses opting to close temporarily rather than committing to more expenses - especially in a time when revenue is still down. I'm also concerned about the competitive landscape going forward. Big businesses will all survive this recession no doubt, but what happens when a significant portion of their competition vanishes? I'd guess markets will consolidate even more as competition dries up and we'll double down on our dependency on cheap foreign labor. Maybe raising wages is part of the solution, but I think this problem is a bit trickier than just that.
throwaway_2009 5y ago
Working conditions themselves have for a significant number of people changed dramatically. Office workers have for the most part been thrown into hybrid or full WFH. If they're in the office, the office probably has desk spacing, or maybe it's been downsized, maybe capacity is limited. If you're a cabbie, or a McDonalds employee, or a supermarket worker, you're probably under some sort of mask mandate or working with screens up. There's Brexit (reduction in EU workers). IR35 (reduction in self employment). Uncertainty in general (if I take this job, will some random government diktat kill it or change it significantly in the next N months). Oh, yeah, furlough. Everyone I know that has any ability to avoid work is doing it at the moment. GP's have been retiring, the well off are on extended leave, those who can squeak it out on reduced hours are doing so, etc. Personally, I see myself as being someone with a fairly strong work ethic, but over the past six months I've just packed it in entirely. I can't be arsed at all, there is no sense in me throwing myself into my work because we could have a lockdown/vaccine passport/masky maskness/social distancing 2.0/whatever that makes my employer change everything thus pushing me into quitting. There are already mumblings of it in the media _again_ for the winter.
auroraceiling 5y ago
Sorry I really could not go through all 360 comments, but as a business owner I believe in a model of attractive recruitment. Meaning that we use https://www.talenteria.com/ https://www.talenteria.com/ that helps us identify microsites to attract the best candidates, and also write attractive vacancies and manage employees retention well.
sytelus 5y ago
Theory: A lot of people have decided to be unemployed during COVID times. Even 5% of population deciding this will result in tremendous labour shortage. I think as people started staying home, many are realizing that they can actually get away with lot less or even no work.
kbob 5y ago
> "We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley That's not what her web site says. https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ > There are currently NO vacancies at Stocks Farm. > Thank you to everyone who has applied for roles. Due to an amazing amount of applicants, we have been flooded with enquiries. We have closed the April jobs and will reopen for August some time in the summer.

203 points by gixo 5y ago

If you want to create jobs, start a pandemic. Over a hunderd thousand jobs were created for testing, contact tracing and vaccinations in my small European country.

alexgmcm 5y ago
If you want to do it old-school style you can go out and break some windows[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
playcache 5y ago
It has much more to do with ending Freedom of Movement with the EU. In this respect Brexit has worked (although who knows the long term implications). Basically labour demands have gone through the roof and its now an employee market. My aunt who is a hotel cleaner just got a £500 monthly increase and has been offered a retention bonus. Lorry / truck drivers are constantly being approached to switch jobs with higher payouts. The rest of the market is getting a feel of what its like to be a software engineer.
nvilcins 5y ago
Those jobs are temporary. On the other hand how many jobs were made redundant as a side-effect of the pandemic? Catering moving a lot towards delivery, people realizing they can actually work from home, etc.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Interestingly unemployment is up (4.6% vs 3.8% in 2018). I doubt that will last long though.
quickthrower2 5y ago
You can create jobs to do anything. E.g. build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I’d be building solar power stations and nuclear ones to create jobs and reduce carbon emissions longer term.
jpxw 5y ago
If we’re going to be that cynical, we could just pay people to dig holes in the ground and fill them back up again. We don’t do that, for good reason.

mysterydip 5y ago

There's a fast food restaurant near my house that is trying to fill vacancies at $20/hr.

question002 5y ago
There's one in my neighborhood that's paying less then that and still multiple people work there.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
There are quite a few cafes and restaurants near us that have closed or reduced their opening hours. Our nearest farm shop has removed what used to be a thriving cafe. I get the impression a lot of these service businesses just won't be viable in a higher wage economy.
ahtihn 5y ago
McDonald's has been paying $20/hour in Switzerland for a long time. Given how rich the US is as a country, I always found it surprising that minimum wage there is so incredibly low.
- adventured 5y ago
  Keep in mind the minimum wage also varies by state. The state minimum wages overrule the federal minimum wage when eclipsed (so if the federal rate is $7.25, and Maryland state is $12, then you have to pay $12 as a business in Maryland). It's probably ideal that the minimum wage is state based, with a lower baseline provided by the federal, given the extreme variance in prosperity and income levels between the states. It'd be like Germany and Greece or Lithuania having the same minimum wage, if you had Massachusetts or Connecticut with the same minimum wage as West Virginia or Arkansas (two of the poorest states). GDP per capita (loose reference for income potential) in New York state is $90,000 per year ($87k in Massachusetts). It's $40k to $45k in Mississippi / Arkansas / West Virginia by comparison. So for reference that $90k New York figure is higher than Norway and comparable to Switzerland. And the Mississippi figure is a bit above Italy. Base wages just can't rationally be the same in Italy and Switzerland for common service jobs. Almost nobody earns the federal minimum wage in the US. It doesn't matter very much at the present rate and could be easily, safely raised with minimum labor disruption. The federal minimum wage hasn't been relevant for 15-20 years, because the market left it behind. To push the lower tier wages higher, the US would need to set the federal minimum wage up near $15 these days. That's the floor that Amazon (via their fulfillment centers) has placed on the labor market as they compete to fill their huge need for labor, pulling it away from companies like Walmart. You can now earn $15 working at Walmart, Target, Amazon, grocery stores and a lot of convenience stores or similar type service businesses with essentially zero labor skill or experience.

stayfrosty420 5y ago

this is good for wages but I am concerned about the resulting inflationary pressure.

question002 5y ago
Why?
- sgt 5y ago
  Why not?
  - jansan 5y ago
    You are both right.
yunohn 5y ago
I think this illustrates the problem with the modern capitalistic society we’ve built for ourselves: “I’m happy wages are going up, but I’m sad it’ll mean my spending power will go down”
mensetmanusman 5y ago
There is always some inflationary pressure when inequality is reduced. For example, very few can support nannies and home servants like they could in the past (and like in India now), when poor people’s wages were so low that they would give up their life to support anyone that owned land. The only way to prevent inflation is with technology and productivity, for example, people today could have home servants in the form of robots if that technology existed, but it currently does not, because the problem is currently extremely difficult given humanity’s existing tool set.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  Eliminating minimum wage would also prevent inflation.

have_faith 5y ago

There's a huge amount of people holidaying within the UK instead of going abroad. I wonder how many millions (billions?) are being captured in the internal market that would otherwise be spent elsewhere. Definitely part of the fuel driving the economic rebound, lots of people's holiday savings being released locally, and the middle class has generally been increasing their savings pots over the lockdowns.

Clepsydra 5y ago
"lots of people's holiday savings being released locally" True. But the UK have missed out of millions of foreign tourists. https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactontheuktravelandtourismindustry/2021-02-15 https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindus...
- stayfrosty420 5y ago
  Based on the extortionate cost of holidaying in the UK right now these stats are relatively surprising
- have_faith 5y ago
  I haven't looked at the data but I imagine foreign tourists mostly go to London and a few venture out to nearby hotspots. People within the UK seem to be branching out to every half-beauty spot we have in every corner of the Isles.
  - alistairSH 5y ago
    Sample of 1 but my last 3 vacations in the UK have skipped London. My impression is anybody visiting for more than a week will likely do a few days in London then move on to someplace else (of my friends, that’s usually Scotland for camping/hiking).
  - retube 5y ago
    Clearly you have never been to Oxford, Bath, York, Edinburgh, Lake District, Cornwall etc etc which are teeming with visitors from the US, China, Japan and many other countries during the summer...

elevenoh 5y ago

Salary increases are seriously lagging inflation.. (especially true if you use a more meaningful inflation metric than CPI) There's less & less incentive to be an employee in the traditional sense. What I'm hearing more & more: Pay me in crypto. Give me equity. Else I'm not interested.

giantg2 5y ago
Is there another metric?
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  CPIH for example in the UK which nominally includes owner-occupier housing costs that aren't part of normal CPI but doesn't contain the elephant in the room which is the increase in house prices.
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
  There's RPI, I guess
IMTDb 5y ago
How does the currency you are paid with changes anything (apart from tax evasion) ?
- jcbrand 5y ago
  So you're willing to be paid in Venezuelan Bolivars?
- elevenoh 5y ago
  Being paid in fiat means my default income stream is a depreciating one. I'd prefer to be paid in an evolving currency, one emerging out of maximal open-competition. Why? Nothing breeds a better result.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago

ndr 5y ago

"We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley and chair of British Apples and Pears. At her orchard, harvest has just started. It must be done quickly and requires many pairs of hands. Ali had to turn to specialist recruitment firms and has brought in seasonal workers from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia. What's a reasonable prediction here? Higher wages and more expensive fruits? A bunch of farms going bust?

kubb 5y ago
Work camps where exploited eastern europeans live in horrible conditions, their rights are violated, they get underpaid and a substantial portion of their wage goes to the agencies acting as middle men.
- plantain 5y ago
  Are you describing the old system or the new system? Because that's what the UK had before, and it's what the Australian system they're trying to emulate produces too.
  - kubb 5y ago
    The old system isn’t that much different from the new system is it? Just the agencies will get paid more for handling the legal side and logistics of importing the workers.
  - swarnie 5y ago
    That's the old system. People would come in, live on site and be feed on site, work hard for 3 months (maybe moving sites as demand came and went) then leave and go back home. The 3 months of hard work and bad conditions was worth it because of the buying power the wages had comparatively back home. UK people simply wont put up with that because they have to use the wages in the UK.
meheleventyone 5y ago

api 5y ago

Good. Wages must be forced up. You can’t have a modern economy without a capitalized middle class. Real estate is so ludicrous we need quite a bit of inflation to make it reasonable again. The alternative would be a deflationary crash where real estate crashes and obliterates everyone’s home equity, but that is far more painful to virtually everyone.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
What prevents landlords from simply soaking up the wage increases then?
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  They might but it may not push up house prices
  - adrianb 5y ago
    How so? If these days a house listed for x gets offers at x+10%, after average wages increase it will receive offers at x+20%. Is there any historical precedent of house prices not rising faster than inflation, absent external factors? I think a major correction of house prices can happen in two ways: - economic catastrophe (everyone's unemployed) / war / natural disaster / ... - we wouldn't want to buy a house anyway in that case; - major increase of interest rates or minimum deposit required - we wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage in that case.
    - quickthrower2 5y ago
      High inflation -> higher internet rates -> lower income multiples for loans + higher rental yields to support interest rates.
- Levitz 5y ago
  What prevents landlords from getting any arbitrary amount of money from their tenants? I think this is a different problem regarding housing.

question002 5y ago

Hey look a bit of people trying to push their agendas by reporting seemingly unsustainable economic conditions. What a great forum for debate!!!

question002 5y ago

Love how someone suggests we start another pandemic and that doesn't get flagged but I get flagged.

torcete 5y ago

I was actually talking about this with some friends yesterday night. We didn't know whether is was an effect of Brexit, the pandemic or both of them combined.

nly 5y ago

Housing is anything from a third to 50% of the average UK earners take home income. Median house price to median income ratios are at historically high levels[0], and rents are now also rising[1] Either wages need to rise or house prices need to fall. [0] If you look at somewhere mundane like Essex the median 'affordability ratio', as measured by the Office of National Statistics ( https://tinyurl.com/x5jatcx8 https://tinyurl.com/x5jatcx8 ), was 4.5 in 2000 but is now north of 10. And yes, low interest rates help with monthly affordability but house prices have gone up ~4 fold in the last 20 years while the multiple of your income banks will lend has not, and peoples capacity to save a deposit that is 4x bigger has not. [1] https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-9969349/Rents-rise-13-years-tenants-flock-UK-cities.html https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/buytolet/article-9969349...

pibechorro 5y ago
Inflation will make any increase in wages meaningless. It will also further drive investment into housing to escape the free falling cash. The answer is no lockdowns, no bailouts, and no quantitative money printing to oblivion. Let the everything bubble pop and start over with sound first principles. We will get there, but not before politicians make it worse and delay the inevitable defaults.
- nly 5y ago
  - Boris Johnson (the British Prime Minister) sold his London family home in 2019 for £3.75M after having rented it out for £2000/week (just under 4x the national average income) while living in his Government provided accommodation in his role as Foreign Secretary (2016-2018).[0] - Property prices have shot up 10% during the pandemic, bolstered in part by the Government cutting stamp duty on sales. - A few days ago the Government raised National Insurance (which is an income tax) on all workers to pay for social care while protecting property wealth with a contribution cap. Nobody in power is popping the property asset bubble in the UK any time soon. It's a sacred cow. I'm in the top 2% of earners by income in the UK and I'm still completely priced out of wrt to buying a modest family home (or flat) a humane, commutable distance of central London. Price/Income ratios are too high even for me because I'm competing with my peers. It's a supply problem, and a problem of foreign investment and bad incentive schemes. [0] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-clinging-rent-free-12949436 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-clingin...

NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago

This reminds me of David Graeber's story on how during one of the pandemics, a plague killed so many people in the UK that those who left got rich by inheriting land and by increasing wages, as there was no one to work. In the case of UK there was a superstorm of Brexit, IR35 change, and pandemic all in one - adding to the issue for employers. But in a way, I do not see this as an issue but a chance to equalize wealth. Either they will reduce their profit and increase wages, automate or go bust. Is it good or bad? We will see over a longer period of time...

jenscow 5y ago
Or just increase wages and increase prices.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
  Second part is not that simple in global economy if you have Chinese cheap labor as direct competitors especially in the food industry where margins for farmers are already too low. I would recommend Jeremy Clarkson - "Clarkson's Farm" first year of operation on a 300 acres farm made a yearly profit of £144 :)
  - dageshi 5y ago
    I might be wrong, but I thought he was factoring in all the equipment he bought in that first year in that calculation? So next year you wouldn't have that cost.
    - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
      Isn't it standard practice to amortize the cost of capital goods over their lifetime?
      - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        If it's after tax profit they were talking about then you can claim an annual investment allowance of £1 million. https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/annual-investment-allowance https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/annual-investment-allo...

fergie 5y ago

The labour squeeze is placing upward pressure on wages, which is pumping more money into the economy which is in turn exacerbating the labour squeeze. Wages have been stagnant in the UK for too long. In the last decade or so certain sectors of the economy (hospitality, agriculture, nursing) have been too dependent on a vulnerable "serf class" of easily exploitable workers. That workers have got more money to spend is a really good thing for themselves and for business.

jenscow 5y ago
But if there aren't enough workers to give the pay increase to, then what? Reducing the pool of workers (Brexit) doesn't sold the wage problem. If a production line requires 30 people, and there are only 20... increasing their wages won't help. It won't encourage additional staff, as company B to Z is doing the same, and people aren't out of work because the wages are too low. Increasing minimum wage is the better way to do it.
- fergie 5y ago
  Good question. You have to understand that "labour shortage" is code for "I cant find workers for the price that I would like". Clearly there isn't (and can't be) and actual shortage of workers, there can only be increased competition between employers for available workers. Its worth noting that in recent history, the times when democracies have been closest to actual labour shortages (post WWI and WWII) have in fact been correlated with economic booms.
  - jenscow 5y ago
    The pool of workers available to UK companies has just been significantly and suddenly reduced. There is an actual shortage - the number of vacancies has exceeded the number of unemployed, without even taking skill into consideration.
- Levitz 5y ago
  The kind of company that can survive in an economy paying X doesn't necessarily survive if they later have to pay 120% of X. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing either, that kind of company probably wouldn't have existed to begin with if inequality wasn't brutal nowadays.

durnygbur 5y ago

> Ali had to turn to specialist recruitment firms and has brought in seasonal workers from Poland I ain't no picking anything! Sent your daughters over here, now we want some easy sex for free! (after charging half of their salary for staying in a moldy hut).

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

When a few companies or industries can’t find enough labor, the solution is simple: Raise wages to attract a larger percentage of the labor pool. When every company and industry is struggling to hire, raising wages is still necessary but it no longer fixes the bigger problem. Those higher wages aren’t producing more labor, they’re just convincing employees with jobs to switch to other jobs. Switching jobs creates a vacancy in the old position. One job opening filled, one job opening created. Net zero. The pandemic shook a lot of people out of the labor market. Everything from people who were on the verge of retirement anyway to people who were forced to stay home with the kids because schools and daycares were closed. Until labor market participation returns to pre-pandemic levels, the labor shortages will continue. Employees win in the short term as companies have no choice but to raise wages to fill positions. The flip side is that inflation will certainly follow as rising wages give people more money to spend (demand up) while labor shortages drive supply down. Demand up, supply down means prices go up. Which ironically could be the impetus that gives people who left the labor market no choice but to return to work: When everything is getting more expensive, people may have no choice but to return to the labor market to earn enough to support their families. It’s going to be interesting to see this settle.

frankbreetz 5y ago
It isn't net zero people can join and leave the labor participation pool, which has been decreasing for awhile now[0]. Higher wages could convince people to join the labor market. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
EGreg 5y ago
Labor shortages don’t necessarily drive supply down — this is going to lead to a boom in automation. Those automated jobs aren’t coming back. We need to phase in a UBI even if it $1 a month for now.
s0rce 5y ago
Many companies don't have sufficient margins to raise wages. Hopefully this isn't confused as me endorsing subpar wages, simply that those business can't be sustained or will just endlessly be looking for someone willing to work for cheap because hiring someone for more will actually cost them money. They may be better of turning away some customers vs. hiring someone for a higher wage to support more demand.

retrac98 5y ago

The UK really shat the bed since the 2008 financial crisis, huh.

jurmous 5y ago

I am curious when the UK will be less strict with worker visas again for European workers after Brexit. It seems the UK has way more economic issues during this phase of the pandemic than mainland EU. On the mainland there are no empty supermarkets, or farms not being able to harvest because of labour shortages. So it seems to be a Brexit issue. But if they allow more European workers again, what was then the point of Brexit? I would hate to be in the shoes of Boris Johnson. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/25/business-leaders-call-for-relaxation-of-post-brexit-visa-rules https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/25/business-le...

sgt101 5y ago
I think they will wait for the furlough scheme to unwind in the next three or so months before making any moves.
Mordisquitos 5y ago
> It seems the UK has way more economic issues during this phase of the pandemic than mainland EU. Tangentially related to this, I have heard little mention about how the timing of the pandemic may have been an absolute godsend and a lifesaver for the current British government. The consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions on the international economy and world trade have made it the perfect scapegoat to blame for the impact of no-deal Brexit.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I don't think they can. Anything related to the EU is toxic within the current government, including relaxing immigration from Europe. Nothing will change unless we get a new government.

throwthere 5y ago

I guess on the one hand businesses aren't paying enough. But I mean, business owners aren't all just evil conspiring anti-labor types. They're in it for the profits and would pay more if they could eek out a reasonable return on investment. On a deeper level, you have all these zombie-businesses now supported by government handouts and terribly low interest rates. The zombie businesses soak up labor for relatively less-productive pursuits.

neilwilson 5y ago
Zombie businesses required to pay more for labour go bust. Raising the cost of labour is a far more reliable way of eliminating zombies than attempting to raise interest costs. No business can operate without labour.
- adventured 5y ago
  > Zombie businesses required to pay more for labour go bust. They may survive for a long period of time in a perma low interest rate environment where debt has become cheap and stocks are highly inflated. Low interest rates, as well as enabling debt accumulation, also float the stock market, which provides shareholder dilution-based funding to businesses that otherwise would have far more severe problems. Uber is an ongoing example of that. Previously they abused venture capitalist institutional money to get by, now they're living as a parasite on shareholders (who are hoping that something changes about the financials in their business, some day, some how). Tech hasn't had a good 'ol brush fire clean out of garbage in a long time now. Companies like Snowflake that are bleeding enormous sums of money, would collapse in a traditional 1990-1991 or 2001-2002 style recession. Snowflake is similar to any number of supposedly fast growing, huge loss-making companies like Exodus Communications from the dotcom era, that imploded when the music stopped (and so many of their business clients pulled back on spending). Snowflake's sales over the last four quarters: $851 million, their operating loss over that time: $775 million. They would instantly shatter if a real recession hit, the stock would drop by 95% rapidly. There is a lot of that garbage floating around the tech space these days, because we haven't had any good clearing fires in a long, long time.

locallost 5y ago

My first thought was the pandemic and Brexit, but according to the article the employment numbers are back to where they were pre pandemic. So it's only Brexit? A lot of seasonal workers left before the pandemic and are not coming back?

sgt101 5y ago
There's 1.5m folks on fulough so this stat isn't that meaningful.
jlokier 5y ago
For the Brexit-related component of worker shortage: It's a mix of workers leaving and choosing not to come back, many of them full-year not just seasonal, as well as workers that would like to come back temporarily to plug the gap, but aren't permitted even for skills-shortage roles. Brexit and changing social attitudes have indeed put many off the UK, making other EU countries more attractive destinations. But there are still some people who would return temporarily for seasonal work if it was permitted. This is not just the "low-paid, unskilled fruit picker" types of jobs, that are sometimes headlines. It is also skilled jobs that require considerable training and are paid well. Example: Industry has been crying out to allow truck drivers from the EU to come to the UK, under the same "skills shortage" short-term visas that are allowed for some other sectors. A number of these involve driving routes on both sides of the UK-EU border, too, so it would make sense from that perspective as well. The government has said no, they must hire British workers for those roles. But they know it isn't possible in the short term, as it takes about 9 months of training. The government saying "just hire British workers today" when they know perfectly well that's not possible to comply with, is typical for this government in many areas, imho. The shortage is obvious when shopping now. Common items you think of as in perpetual oversupply are currently out of stock, from normally well-managed supermarkets. For example, I can't buy any size pack of Coke Zero cans for delivery from the biggest supermarket Tesco. This is a popular item in the UK, and Tesco have a reputation for great logistics. Same for about a third of the other items on my regular items list. That's due to the truck driver shortage. Wages have increased tremendously (about 3x I think) for those roles this year. It's now a decent wage, more than a lot of people are earning, and they still can't be filled. So there's a genuine skills shortage in the UK, and people outside would do the jobs even temporarily while British workers were training, if it were permitted.

softwaredoug 5y ago

If only there were people willing to move to your country from their current bad situation, so eager for citizenship they’d take on any job.. it’s almost an arrangement too good to be true

throw84848 5y ago
> so eager for citizenship they’d take on any job You disgust me for wishing we were exploiting people like this.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
That's not what people voted for in 2016.
- jlokier 5y ago
  Brexit as implemented isn't what most people voted for in 2016 either. Just ask them. Others have. The more common answer is some variation on "I didn't vote for this Brexit". Particularly entertaining are the business owners now going bankrupt who voted for Brexit, now saying "I didn't know this is what Brexit meant when I voted for it". I'd also argue that the fundamental, defining feature of democracy is that the people most immediately affected by an issue vote on the issue. So it's not democracy when the people most affected are not included in the vote. That's fake democracy, where the foxes vote who to have for dinner and the other animals don't get a say, but it's what we have, so here we are.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    And one of my common responses is "well, this is the Brexit I voted against". Many of these consequences were completely predicable.
- softwaredoug 5y ago
  They may not have voted for it, but its still a valid policy position to advocate for :)

vxland 5y ago

Europe has evaded classical market economy by importing more people who'd work for lower wages at the slightest hint of any labor shortage. Pre-immigration such people would be called scabs. Now that you have Brexit, raise the wages. That's why people voted for it in an unusual recognition of their self-interests.

swarnie 5y ago
If you fancy annoying people go to a UK subreddit and claim Brexit was about workers rights, workers compensation and was humanitarian issue to help those most in need. Hilarious results will follow.
- dageshi 5y ago
  Only masochists go near that sub, it's pretty much the most miserable place on the entire internet.
  - swarnie 5y ago
    Which one? UK, UKpol, and even AskUK all creep there on occasions.
    - dageshi 5y ago
      UK UKpol is not far off nowadays either, that one didn't used to be so terrible. Never really read AskUK but I don't doubt it's similar. The only way forward is to keep it casual.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      Not sure how /uk works, but /Canada is basically made up of people whose own metro/regional/provincial subreddits don’t have a critical mass, which basically makes it representative of low-population density areas in low-population density provinces.
      - 5y ago

fallingfrog 5y ago

I’m not sure why none of the popular narratives are considering that this is just demographics- the boomers are aging out of the workforce. This pushes up the cost of labor due to supply and demand. Which is a good thing, if you’re not a boomer. But it’s going to constrain gdp growth.

regularfry 5y ago
The baby boom was smaller in the UK, and a slightly odd shape. It did happen, but not to the same extent as in the US.

Zigurd 5y ago

Not every posted open position will be filled. Some of those postings are the equivalent of lowball bids. They are opportunistic. Some are critical and must be filled at any price. The vacancies number does not capture the difference. I wonder how that shakes out in retrospect. Jobs that never got filled were not real vacancies just as "I'll give you five dollars for that car" does not make me a customer.

neilwilson 5y ago

There are 1.034 million vacancies and 3.277 million people without work that want it. There isn't a shortage of labour. There is a shortage of decent pay and conditions. Firms are going to have to get over their cheap labour obsession or close and leave the market to those firms that can.

luckylion 5y ago
I have a neighbor who is quite happy with what the government pays him while he's not working. I'm sure he could be motivated to work by offering larger salaries, but they'd have to be raised by at least 100% to convince him to go from 0 hours/week to 40 hours/week. I'm not sure there are 3.277 million people without work who want it.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  He must be particularly frugal then as the government doesn't pay you much to sit on your backside. https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance
  - luckylion 5y ago
    I'm in Germany, but it's a similar amount (+ rent, internet, utilities, health insurance etc). He has the basics like a cell phone, flat screen and playstation and seems to be content with it.
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      There will always be people willing to accept the bare minimum. That doesn't have anything to do with the fact that those who do work are still in poverty, with no way out. Also many have never had a single vacation in their lives. Some just needed the break. e-spells
      - luckylion 5y ago

EGreg 5y ago

The market for jobs isn’t clearing. Jobs growth is weak and yet there are many vacancies. Does this mean people are finally holding out for higher pay? The goals of UBI have been demonstrated? And we have barely given out a UBI, only a few stimulus checks. Perhaps people got a taste of working from home and companies need to allow more remote work. Either way, I do not see this as a bad thing.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>only a few stimulus checks The article is about the UK, there have been no stimulus cheques.

WhompingWindows 5y ago

How does the global job vacancy market look? Here in the US, a lot of local restaurants and retail stores are hiring; practically every place you enter has a NOW HIRING sign out front. I'd say immigration would be a huge boon to many of these small businesses, but when I spoke to one restaurant owner, he bemoaned the labor shortage and a $15 minimum wage. It'd kill his prices, he'd lose customers. Then, in other rants, he's using all the Fox News lines about stealing our jobs, keep them out of our country, caravans, ugh. He doesn't connect the dots and see how pivotal immigration is to the economy. Either you have more babies, increase productivity, increase efficiency, or you allow immigrants in to make up the gap in the babies we're not having anymore. But no, the color of their skin, the difference of their culture, is enough to make economics less important than identity to the right wing in the USA.

deleted 5y ago
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flerchin 5y ago

Jobs only stay vacant when the compensation is not market clearing. In many cases, the compensation for the marginal jobs will need to include childcare or training.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

What are these jobs? Human health and hospitality? Then they go on and list fruit pickers? And retail stores hiring staff for the Xmas onset? Are they kidding? These are temporary jobs, probably not previously posted as done underhanded, but now there's no fruit pickers for cheap and they seek more official channels. And drivers, yes obviously drivers to deliver the aforementioned goods. Covid, Brexit, good luck finding the fruit pickers. This is not an economic recovery, this is harvest and Xmas time, nothing fundamental has changed. As for the housing prices, indeed, as you would say in England, in "the north" , you get double the house for half the price, and even better quality. It's not London though, and there's not too many jobs.

ourlordcaffeine 5y ago
I believe the vacancies are mostly bar staff, carers, farm labour and haulage. There are a bunch of delusional pub landlords in my city who complain about the lack of staff and claim stuff like "today's youth are entitled and lazy" - but apparently failed to notice local supermarkets literally pay more with fewer hours.

wing-_-nuts 5y ago

My question is when are we getting project loom? https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Main https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Main

dbetteridge 5y ago

Related discussion happening on reddit about this, personally i've already noticed an uptick in wages for Software Engineers in London and an increase in remote roles. https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/pivruo/the_10_jobs_where_people_are_needed_most_as_uk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/pivruo/the_1...

GordonS 5y ago
I've noticed a big uptick in availability of senior roles (e.g. Architect) recently, but also a big uptick in salary - I've had several recruiters contacting me over the past month for senior roles in the range of £80-95k, and every one was OK with remote work too. Never seen anything like it.
- dbetteridge 5y ago
  Yep exactly the same here, non-stop recruiter mail on linkedin since Nov 2020 (when I moved to my current role from one of these). Senior roles in the 80-100k range, a few 'team lead' and fintech's looking around 140-160k (these were much more office focused though).

boulos 5y ago

Hmm. Am I reading this correctly? There are 1M openings across the UK (population about 60M) and 10M across the US [1] (population 300M-ish). There are twice as many openings per person in the US. (I also don't assume the demographics are wildly out of step). [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/job-offers https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/job-offers

CivBase 5y ago

I'm not so sure about the whole "just pay workers more" solution every talks about. If that were viable for many businesses, don't you think they'd choose to do that over closing their doors? A business owner has to consider what kind of wage increases would even be needed for a short-term hiring boom and whether they could sustain that increase in the long term. A case could be made that some businesses are not viable if they can't afford to pay market rates for labor, so they should close. However, the market rates for labor seem to be in fluctuation due to the ongoing pandemic and associated government responses. It looks to me like many businesses are still just trying to ride the storm out and hope things look better for them on the other side, hence many businesses opting to close temporarily rather than committing to more expenses - especially in a time when revenue is still down. I'm also concerned about the competitive landscape going forward. Big businesses will all survive this recession no doubt, but what happens when a significant portion of their competition vanishes? I'd guess markets will consolidate even more as competition dries up and we'll double down on our dependency on cheap foreign labor. Maybe raising wages is part of the solution, but I think this problem is a bit trickier than just that.

throwaway_2009 5y ago

Working conditions themselves have for a significant number of people changed dramatically. Office workers have for the most part been thrown into hybrid or full WFH. If they're in the office, the office probably has desk spacing, or maybe it's been downsized, maybe capacity is limited. If you're a cabbie, or a McDonalds employee, or a supermarket worker, you're probably under some sort of mask mandate or working with screens up. There's Brexit (reduction in EU workers). IR35 (reduction in self employment). Uncertainty in general (if I take this job, will some random government diktat kill it or change it significantly in the next N months). Oh, yeah, furlough. Everyone I know that has any ability to avoid work is doing it at the moment. GP's have been retiring, the well off are on extended leave, those who can squeak it out on reduced hours are doing so, etc. Personally, I see myself as being someone with a fairly strong work ethic, but over the past six months I've just packed it in entirely. I can't be arsed at all, there is no sense in me throwing myself into my work because we could have a lockdown/vaccine passport/masky maskness/social distancing 2.0/whatever that makes my employer change everything thus pushing me into quitting. There are already mumblings of it in the media _again_ for the winter.

auroraceiling 5y ago

Sorry I really could not go through all 360 comments, but as a business owner I believe in a model of attractive recruitment. Meaning that we use https://www.talenteria.com/ https://www.talenteria.com/ that helps us identify microsites to attract the best candidates, and also write attractive vacancies and manage employees retention well.

sytelus 5y ago

Theory: A lot of people have decided to be unemployed during COVID times. Even 5% of population deciding this will result in tremendous labour shortage. I think as people started staying home, many are realizing that they can actually get away with lot less or even no work.

kbob 5y ago

> "We advertised locally for 70 fruit-pickers and we had nine applications. On follow-up, only one was still available... in terms of recruiting locally, we failed completely," says Ali Capper, the owner of Stocks Farm in Suckley That's not what her web site says. https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ https://stocksfarm.net/vacancies-2/ > There are currently NO vacancies at Stocks Farm. > Thank you to everyone who has applied for roles. Due to an amazing amount of applicants, we have been flooded with enquiries. We have closed the April jobs and will reopen for August some time in the summer.