I’ve been self-employed for >20 years but MrsSB used to work two days a week in an estate agents until it folded last May.
Since then she’s been sponging off me enjoying her free time but was getting bored which lead to shopping which isn’t cool when you’ve got no income.
She’d applied for a fair number of part-time jobs but rarely even had a reply which is pretty crap.
Anyway last week a PA job came up at a commercial property company which sounded great, although it was 5 hrs/day 5 days per week but with some flexibility.
She applied and got the job so she’s pretty chuffed. Turns out there were > 100 applicants for the job which I think is pretty scary.

Makes me feel for those out there who are still looking for jobs. 😐

I’m genuinely pushing both my kids to do some kind of work placed education via say rolls Royce etc as I can see them doing a degree in x and never getting the job they studied for.
On tbe other hand there’s a massive shortage in building trades still. So few young lads on site. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Society is working towards being more efficient and needing less people doing more work but the unemployed are still considered “scroungers” and “paracites” when they can’t get a job. It’s structural unemployment, it’s growing, it’ll continue to grow and there simply won’t be work for everyone.

It’s an odd time – technically we have record levels of employment, and low unemployment, but I know a lot of people are still suffering – I guess the under employment problem is still a factor – skilled people in unskilled roles are still going to be applying for lots of jobs.

Doesn’t seem to be so much of a problem in Cardiff, lots of our clients are trying to find people – I’m seeing signs for “walk in interviews today!” outside agencies who in 2009 wanted to see a CV to let you in the door and one client who is an employment agency is offering walk-in today, work tomorrow jobs – if you don’t mind min wage non-skilled work.

+1 for some support for those struggling to find anything…

I’m at a loss to understand how the stockmarket and various sets of data on employment and economic growth keep suggesting a positive, strong economy as on the jobs front it feels like anything but. A few anecdotes from me
1. Had to move out of London last year to find work – 20 years experience in marketing, spent 6 months unemployed after my last contract came to an end – couldn’t even get an interview – a couple I did got cancelled or put on hold indefinitely. My new employer is going through a big review as well, likely to lead to job cuts…
2. Brazilian friend of mine, very well qualified, multi-lingual, lots of experience, took 18 months to get a job
3. One of my best mates, very senior, impeccable CV, 20+ years experience, 10+ years in the City – ended up moving out to Abu Dhabi just over a year ago – he couldn’t get work either.

These kind of high value, knowledge-worker senior roles in London are supposed to be where the growth is, but on the ground it doesn’t appear that growth is turning into jobs. And all these anecdotes are from before the Referendum vote and Brexit…

I guess Brexit is a better measure of sentiment about economic opportunities than the official metrics.

I’m always being accused of being too negative but reading papers like the FT and Economist and there’s serious concern that the underlying economic situation is incredibly precarious – without super low interest rates and QE we’d be in serious trouble.

getting the job they studied for

Therein lies one problem. Medicine and engineering exempted, perhaps, people shouldn’t be studying for jobs. They should pursue studies for knowledge’s sake, and if they’re not especially interested in that, then they should do as you say and get some sort of workplace-based training.

I have made it very clear to my own children that, if they’re not interested in formal studies, then I will be very supportive of them should they choose to train for work in some other way.

In the OP example, it sounds like the ideal mother of school age children job – they are like rocking horse shite… It no wonder there was a lot of applicants!
I often advertise for positions in a joinery firm, indoor work, nice environment, stable company. Everything from sanding timber to working on CAD in offices, and including CNC operators in the middle.

The uptake to the adverts is shocking – there’s nobody out there who a) wants to work b)has any relevant experience.
More and more are eastern Europeans, simply because they can do and want the job.

Brrrr.

Cold in here innit.

I’ve been looking for a “proper” job for a year and a half now.

4 years experience in financial administration. 4 years working at a university. Two degrees. Have only managed to get part time work in a wine shop.

Fortunately the Mrs is in full time work in her field, but she is massively underpaid for her level of experience and qualifications (science PhD).

It makes me laugh when the Tories bang on about low unemployment. Underemployment is the problem now.

The people I remember closely from uni 20 years ago, what they studied and the job they got.
Product design, worked for Severn trent.
Product design, teacher.
The built environment, ozzy tourism.
Chemistry, viagra salesman.
Media studies, insurance broker.
Chemistry (me) construction.
At least when you do work place learning you get to know what the job is going to be like. I remember sitting in the lab one day overlooking the students in the sunshine outside the union and thinking, sod this I need to work outdoors!

Depends on what your job is.

Two years ago I was looking for a new job and really struggled.

Now, I am beating recruitment consultants off with a shitty stick.

The boom and bust nature of the construction industry…..

Today I read this…….

Jeremy Blackburn – Head of Policy at the Royal Instition of Chareters Surveyors said: “Many firms are currently having to bring construction professionals in from outside the UK. The lack of quantity surveyors consistently apparent in our survey is also underscored by the fact that, at the moment, under the government’s Shortage Occupation List, it is easier to employ a ballet dancer than a quantity surveyor.

If your going to do a degree and your not a rocket scientist do business at a proper business school.

Having been made redundant at the end of last year I’ve been in the thick of it recently.

Bit of advice though; if you’ve the skills/background lots of big companies are crying out for people with systems engineering/design/consultancy skills right now (At least in the digital space!).

Alot of firms are transitioning from having primarily a traditional engineering focus to a engineering-digital hybrid (Think ‘internet of things’ and such) with alot more variables and new skill sets required.

Construction was hit badly in 08 and a lot of civil engineers etc just aren’t there anymore due to retirement and lack of recruitment in that period.

There are big tenders out there for some of our road schemes but there aren’t enough contractors out there.

I do wonder if the employment figures are made to artificially look good by unskilled, low pay and zero hour contracts.

I was interviewing for apprentices last week. Our HR dept has a standard list of interview questions and as I was going over list, I had to admit I would hate to go for a job interview nowadays. Companies are looking for a very high standard of applicants and even if you have the qualifications, personal qualities are what makes an applicant stand out.

Jeremy Blackburn – Head of Policy at the Royal Instition of Chareters Surveyors said: “Many firms are currently having to bring construction professionals in from outside the UK. The lack of quantity surveyors consistently apparent in our survey is also underscored by the fact that, at the moment, under the government’s Shortage Occupation List, it is easier to employ a ballet dancer than a quantity surveyor.

in my experience most QS`s would make better ballet dancers… or maybe they ARE ballet dancers – it would explain alot!

we interview alot but finding appropriate staff is the challenge.

in my experience most QS`s would make better ballet dancers… or maybe they ARE ballet dancers

I also cook.

has any relevant experience.

Therein lies the rub. If the employers aren’t training their staff but expecting them to arrive with relevant experience then there will be recruitment problems. As it’s a finite resource.

If the employer selected on ability to learn and then trained that under-utilised or unemployed worker they would engender something called ‘loyalty’. No, that’s a silly outmoded concept!

(There may have been just a soupçon of sarcasm in the above).

Getting a job is a piece of piss.
If anyone here is in need I could probably get you a job at my local meat packing plant by the end of next week. 😉

I’m genuinely pushing both my kids to do some kind of work placed education via say rolls Royce etc as I can see them doing a degree in x and never getting the job they studied for.
On tbe other hand there’s a massive shortage in building trades still. So few young lads on site. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

I’d be wary of this. I did Chemical Engineering and went into Oil and Gas. Which is about as vocational a degree and career as you could get outside of medicine or architecture.

Oil and Gas dies on it’s arse, so no jobs.

Likewise a brickie may be able to name his price some years, others they’ll get nowhere.

There’s something to be said for more general qualifications (degrees that bear no relation to your job afterwards) that allow you to just do ‘a well paid job’. OTOH it’s an expensive way to differentiate yourself.

Getting a job is a piece of piss.
If anyone here is in need I could probably get you a job at my local meat packing plant by the end of next week.

You’d think that, but I’ve applied for everything (not kidding, proper panic driven scatter gunning of agencies).

However shit the job is, there’ll be someone else who already has experience of it also applying.

Once you’re over 50, you are 4 times less likely to get an interview (all other things being equal), but it’s not discrimination, apparently. 🙄 And it’s bloody depressing not getting an interview for a job that’s still not filled 2 year later.

1. Had to move out of London last year to find work – 20 years experience in marketing, spent 6 months unemployed after my last contract came to an end – couldn’t even get an interview – a couple I did got cancelled or put on hold indefinitely. My new employer is going through a big review as well, likely to lead to job cuts…

Without wanting to seem harsh, I’d say that’s part of the problem, right there.
I was in print, publishing and prepress for around thirty years, but when I was made redundant, all the jobs being advertised wanted web experience, one in Bath wanted someone who could work in Quark, Indesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, and a whole bunch of other applications, could design, set up and maintain web pages, and would pay six pound an hour, this was twelve years ago.
I had no web experience at all, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to travel the twelve miles to Bath and back every day!
I did get a job eventually, where my old-school experience was actually an advantage, which lasted eleven years, but new brooms in the company decided I couldn’t meet their ever more exacting demands for speed/accuracy etc meant I had to go.
Never been so glad to lose a job!
Now driving and delivering cars for a living, and loving it, stress levels no longer threatening my health.

Now driving and delivering cars for a living

I would love to do that 🙂

I left the RAF (aircraft tech) just before Christmas, and was crapping it to be honest at the thought of the job search, I did plenty of prep and looking about, and when the time came I applied for 6 jobs, got 4 offers of interview, attended 2 and got offered both of these. All in engineering sector, but the one I took is a massive industry change for me. All 30k plus jobs, all local to me (Norfolk). I found it incredibly easy to be honest.

Opposite problem here, I’ve been recruiting and senior people are wanting quite frankly ridiculous salaries for the industry / region / role. Several candidates pulling out at various stages. From what I can tell already in perm employment and having a flutter by seeing if someone will stump up 20-30k over the average

There are jobs out there,problem is they dont pay much have no image, as for construction, we urgently need more construction/engineering workers, we are all getting older and we look around and there are not many being recruited to replace us.

Whats needed is more programes about engineering/construction,more subsidised training and tool kits supplied to new starters at low prices, and a cull of stupid and daft univercity courses, that are just a drain on the taxpayer.

Same as others, never found it hard to find work but then I don’t have a degree and my cv reads from manual labour to high-st banking work, I’m versatile and I interview well.
Far too many people think their piece of paper with a degree on it entitles them to a 30k a year starting salary job on their doorstep.

Find an industry you like, in my case it was healthcare, get a foot in the door…..my initial job was ferrying old people around for 13k a year, keep your head down, don’t take the mickey with sick, apply for promotion and crack on….it’s the time honoured way.

This year my end of year tax/p60 thing has me down as having earned £47,000….i’m a paramedic FFS, while I think my job is important that wage seems frankly ludicrous…a friend who is a junior DR earns less than me!
The work (and the money) is out there if you are prepared to put the time in (17 yrs in the NHS so far), grab any courses and qualifications when they’re offered to you because they’re yours for life and gold dust when hawking yourself around the job market…I’ve earned more in previous years by flirting with the private sector as a contractor/bank worker.

Look at the world we live in and decide what’s going to boom and what is fading….health care is booming thanks to all the fatties and oldies….having a state registration as a DR, nurse, paramedic etc is essentially a licence to print money at the moment, don’t believe the media hysteria….i have colleagues (who admittedly don’t have social lives) earning 75k a year as paramedics by hoovering up all the overtime and taking bank work with Reliance, Capita, G4S etc

Shock horror you might have to relocate to work in the industry of your choice, we’re a small country, it’s no real hardship is it?!

I’m finding it very hard to find another job in Scotland, nothing seems to be getting built here any more, all the jobs are in the south east or Manchester it seems.

We struggle for sign makers and artworkers in Bristol. Anyone interested?

has any relevant experience.

Therein lies the rub. If the employers aren’t training their staff but expecting them to arrive with relevant experience then there will be recruitment problems. As it’s a finite resource.

If the employer selected on ability to learn and then trained that under-utilised or unemployed worker they would engender something called ‘loyalty’. No, that’s a silly outmoded concept![/quote]

And the other side of this is that in my experiance, most people who want to learn a new role (for which we will provide full training and even a full apprenticeship, still expect a salary that is equal to that of people who have been doing the job for years. It simply doesn’t add up!
I offered advice on here a while ago about someone wanting a career change into bench joinery, I offered (if the area was right) for him to come in a see what it looked like, and would happily have trained accordingly. If you find the thread, you’ll find the guy eventually saying ‘oh no, not going to do it, would have to take a pay cut to train’….
That’s just the way of the world, your skills are worth a market value, while in training, they are worth less.

Rant over!

I wish there were more apprentiships for older people. My wife is 40 and an incredibly hard worker, she’d love a trade apprentiship but if you are older than 21 forget it. The bizarre thing is that an older person knows what they want more and want to do an apprentiship in something they really like, not just as a means of getting the cash.

It is a funny situation we’re in now. When I got my last job in 2011 it took something like 80 applications to get it. I’d just finished a degree in geology and got a job in the construction industry, fortunately doing geology. Everyone wanted experience, I just wanted to learn.

Now we are trying to find a civil engineer and can’t for love nor money. I don’t know where they’ve all gone!

On a random tangent, I had a really weird dream last night, I was on a whole day assessment centre / job interview thing run by our ex-marketing manager. I was really stuggling to understand any of it and couldn’t keep up with everyone else; didn’t have a clue what was going on. Then the alarm went of.

I don’t even work in Marketing…..

So a couple of anecdotes from me…

I work in a small department for a huge multi-national. We’re a ‘niche’ business who designs/builds refrigeration plant for Naval ships and submarines.
I’m a project manager, I’m 44 and have 10 years experience.
We always struggle with finding people to work here – we either get graduates who’ve left uni with £50k of student debt and want to start on £45k or people who have minimal skills/relevant experience.
We’d pay getting on for £30k for a junior project Engineer but struggle to get anyone.
We’ve got 2 x Polish design Engineers (who are great) because we couldn’t find anyone from the UK.

I’m pretty confident that if I lost my job I’d get another PM job in the Defence sector within 3 months.

My Wife is a SENCo in a large secondary school – she has 2 people working for her, and inclusion manger, and an inclusion assistant.
For different reasons, both left at Christmas (one retired, the other was got rid of on competency)
The pay is pretty good – £30k (pro-rata as its term time only) for the inclusion manger, and around £17k for the assistant – they really struggled to find anyone who was any good, and had applications from some absolute ****.

I think there are jobs out there, trouble is they’re often in the wrong places, and there aren’t the people with the right skills to do the jobs.

Ref people wanting high salaries – you need to simply look at two things
1. Debt – especially for new graduates. They’ve been forced into a massive debt. They’ve no way of paying it off without earning a decent amount – hence they ask for a decent amount. A bit harsh to blame them for this situation. Remember if they don’t earn above the threshold amount c£21k then the bill falls to the taxpayer (thereby taking away taxes from NHS, schools, road etc).
They also have to save silly money to be able to buy a home at some point in the future. Again, they didn’t create this situation, it was forced on them.

I appreciate they may come across as expecting too much but it was government and older generations that have forced these massive basic costs on them and they’ve no way of clearing their student or mortgage debts without big salaries. Or should we expect them to live their whole lives in debt?

2. Cost of housing – force up the cost of an essential to the levels we’re now at and no-one’s got anything left to spend on day to day stuff – hence higher salaries are needed to be able to get shelter, pay for food, bills etc. let alone save for pension/rainy day.
I’d like to retrain to something else but having already left London to reduce my rent down to £900 month I simply can’t afford to take any kind of pay cut in order to move career and start again from the bottom. So I’m trapped – by the cost of housing.

We’ve put our economy in a really weak place through trying to fund everything through debt, refusing to train our workforce properly and pushing up the most basic costs of living up through the stratosphere. We’re now beginning to find out just how stupid we’ve been…

I don’t disagree, but it is a massive ballache when you advertise a role at salary £X, go through CV sift, telephone interview, face to face, offer to find out they want 2x £X + Y and then decline.

I have been recruiting since Nov, luckily have 7 new starters joining shortly, ended up going with more people with ‘potential’ than ‘experience’ than I intended due to majority of senior people pricing themselves out.

We struggle for sign makers and artworkers in Bristol. Anyone interested?

All of my qualifications are in art+design, and I worked as a sign maker for a year when I was younger.
How much are you going to pay me?

thisisnotaspoon – Member

You’d think that, but I’ve applied for everything (not kidding, proper panic driven scatter gunning of agencies).

However shit the job is, there’ll be someone else who already has experience of it also applying.

No one who already has experience would apply for this place I’m thinking of. Not even my Polish brethren will work there! I’ve checked and they are recruiting. 😆

R4 a bit earlier, they were syaing how the jobs market has declined for young men of my generation (millennials), wages are lower, types of employment seem to have changed, many more in retail, catering, service roles etc, they were questioning why, and nobody had any answers. They’re worse off than the previous generation.

For me it’s simple, culture has changed, we’re an ever more urban and connected society, everyone is consuming the same stuff, media, food, fashion, tech, trends, you name it, in nearly any town in the country you could speak to people and they’d all know the same stuff, eat at the same places, wear the same clothes, idolise the same ‘celebrities’ etc.

Part of that, in my eyes, is also people wanting fame, ‘cool’ jobs and not really having to do any hard graft to get where they want to be, which is invariably an attractive, sexually liberal woman by their side, some ‘fleek’ clothes (whatever the **** that means) a smart car, latest gadgets and a house with all mod cons. They don’t on the whole care if they can afford all of that either, they just know they want it, and think it’s a right to have it, even if that means borrowing and getting into debt, it’s all about image to LOTS of people my age, and younger ever more so (I’m 28 for the record).

Education is another thing, the lads who perhaps didn’t do so well at school 20, 30, 40 years ago ended up going to technical college and getting a trade, eventually earning themselves good money, having valuable skills, and progressing well in life. Young lads now don’t want that, there are hardly any young apprentices on any of the (many) building sites I visit, the industry is desperate for labour, of any sort, but apprentices and skilled labour particularly. A lot of these lads would rather work in costa coffee and spend their evenings in the gym/looking at themselves in the mirror, snapchatting a dozen girls.

Some sweeping generalisations there, I know, but it’s what I see of my generation all the time, and I’m from a small, very rural county with a tiny city at it’s centre, not a big city. Country lads are a bit different, they’ll work, and those who do better at school, but I think fundamentally, the less intelligent and less well qualified just want an easy ride and won’t get off their bloody arses to do physical work.

Core +1!

I’m 40 and overweight and do an office job nowadays but I would still get my hands dirty and graft all day better than 20yo’s can do.