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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 c

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
        Oh definitely, you can be working and still be poor, but that's a separate issue. I was pointing out that the number of people on unemployment benefits isn't the number of those seeking work, so there's no problem having 3m people vs 1m open jobs that don't get filled. It's an inconvenient truth to many, but it's still the truth. Getting them back to work would be a great improvement. But I don't think we can make low-skill jobs magically double in value, so there's probably no way, and we'll keep an underclass who are effectively getting UBI and don't contribute.
        effingwewt 5y ago
        Yea it's a mess to be sure. Our society is so dirty even if we have UBI rents will magically jump to whatever it is, I'm sure. It feels like we are all on the Titanic, we see the iceberg coming, but half of us want to steer to avoid it, and half of us want to pretend it isn't there. But if someone doesn't do something we are all going to sink.
culopatin 5y ago
That and maybe a lack of people with the training needed.
- dazc 5y ago
  Because you can get away with not training people so long as there is a sizeable pool of people who've already been trained at someone else's expense.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dazc 5y ago
Not just base rate pay but, also, the motivation to do a low-skilled job isn't just to earn enough money to survive but also to improve one's life over the long term. It used to be the case you could do a labouring job where there would be regular overtime, often paid at a premium. I had one such job many years ago and could double my regular pay by working a few extra hours each day. Then employers realised instead of paying premium overtime rates they could just hire another person at basic rate. Not sure what the situation is now but back then it became normal for jobs to advertised at 16 hours a week. In effect, these employers were employing 3 or 4 people where they would previously employ one and they could do this because 16 hours turned out to be the optimum amount someone receiving benefits could work and receive a top-up to get a survivable amount of money each month.
dv_dt 5y ago
It’s also a unwillingness to train or risk anything but a perfect fit resume. Imho it might take a little investment but employees you train into what you want are usually a win win for the employee and the business on multiple counts.
oliwarner 5y ago
If only it were that simple. Firstly these vacancies cover all jobs. Including seasonal Jobs which were traditionally filled by EU workers. Lots of farms struggling to hire this year. There are also lots of part time roles to fill in around furloughed workers. In a broader sense, jobs need to be in the same places as the people. The UK housing market is such that moving (even to rent) is very slow and expensive. Commuting in both overcrowded and extortionately expensive. If we want poor people to work in our overpriced cities, we have to subsidise comfortable and fast public transport. Two hours of childcare for one child costs one hour of minimum wage work. Families with more than one child literally can't afford to work. It's also hard to find childcare! More employers could get involved here but it would be more efficient to make 1yo+ childcare free for 30 hours, means assessed. So yes, higher pay helps, but there are many things that block people from returning to work.

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
      Oh definitely, you can be working and still be poor, but that's a separate issue. I was pointing out that the number of people on unemployment benefits isn't the number of those seeking work, so there's no problem having 3m people vs 1m open jobs that don't get filled. It's an inconvenient truth to many, but it's still the truth. Getting them back to work would be a great improvement. But I don't think we can make low-skill jobs magically double in value, so there's probably no way, and we'll keep an underclass who are effectively getting UBI and don't contribute.
      - effingwewt 5y ago
        Yea it's a mess to be sure. Our society is so dirty even if we have UBI rents will magically jump to whatever it is, I'm sure. It feels like we are all on the Titanic, we see the iceberg coming, but half of us want to steer to avoid it, and half of us want to pretend it isn't there. But if someone doesn't do something we are all going to sink.

culopatin 5y ago

That and maybe a lack of people with the training needed.

dazc 5y ago
Because you can get away with not training people so long as there is a sizeable pool of people who've already been trained at someone else's expense.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dazc 5y ago

Not just base rate pay but, also, the motivation to do a low-skilled job isn't just to earn enough money to survive but also to improve one's life over the long term. It used to be the case you could do a labouring job where there would be regular overtime, often paid at a premium. I had one such job many years ago and could double my regular pay by working a few extra hours each day. Then employers realised instead of paying premium overtime rates they could just hire another person at basic rate. Not sure what the situation is now but back then it became normal for jobs to advertised at 16 hours a week. In effect, these employers were employing 3 or 4 people where they would previously employ one and they could do this because 16 hours turned out to be the optimum amount someone receiving benefits could work and receive a top-up to get a survivable amount of money each month.

dv_dt 5y ago

It’s also a unwillingness to train or risk anything but a perfect fit resume. Imho it might take a little investment but employees you train into what you want are usually a win win for the employee and the business on multiple counts.

oliwarner 5y ago

If only it were that simple. Firstly these vacancies cover all jobs. Including seasonal Jobs which were traditionally filled by EU workers. Lots of farms struggling to hire this year. There are also lots of part time roles to fill in around furloughed workers. In a broader sense, jobs need to be in the same places as the people. The UK housing market is such that moving (even to rent) is very slow and expensive. Commuting in both overcrowded and extortionately expensive. If we want poor people to work in our overpriced cities, we have to subsidise comfortable and fast public transport. Two hours of childcare for one child costs one hour of minimum wage work. Families with more than one child literally can't afford to work. It's also hard to find childcare! More employers could get involved here but it would be more efficient to make 1yo+ childcare free for 30 hours, means assessed. So yes, higher pay helps, but there are many things that block people from returning to work.