For the past three years i’ve been on 12k/yr (probably about 6k/yr this year) and i live quite happily. Enough money to keep me in nice food, bike bits and the odd night out. I don’t have a family and i live in a shared house so obviously that cuts down my expenditure a lot, but to say £19k/yr is unliveable is ridiculous.

however, i don’t see what this has to do with anything as i was about to offer him a round that he could make 400 on by renting from us.

So does the 400 you quoted mean after he’s paid the rent or before?

I’m not out to get you, I can only imagine you do not have much choice being an employee yourself, it’s a wider discussion I am interested in, but it’s been stimulated by and is illustrated by your posts.

So perhaps you could offer us a more detailed breakdown of what your offer exactly is?

You say you wont reply, isn’t that really because I am actually holding you to account, I just want to know what it is you offer, by only replying to those who give you the thumbs up it looks a bit ummm non-transparent?

£19k/yr is unliveable is ridiculous.

I never said it was unliveable that is your knee jerk response, I said it wasn’t quite “a good wage” as the OP had defined it, its actually only an average wage as defined by a 2006 study.

Toys19 – I wouldn’t say 52×375 = 19.5k a year is a good wage anywhere, in Devon its actually equivalent to an average wage.

Perhaps you cannot employ people because the money is not actually that great.

I don’t have a family and i live in a shared house so obviously that cuts down my expenditure a lot, but to say £19k/yr is unliveable is ridiculous.

I think most were saying it stopped you buying a home and would make it difficult to pay the additional costs associated with having a family. Certainly 12 k wont help unless you get into social/council housing. It does not stop you having fun when you are young and sharing with your mates but is this what you want to be doing for the rest of your life?

Wouldn’t it just be easier to pay the person a fixed wage and leave it at that? We live in uncertain times and if a person is uncertain of what they may earn each week I’d suggest that may be part of your problem. I’ve watched this thread go to four pages and I still don’t really know what you’re paying.

I spent an hour on the phone this morning explaining to a customer why the 100k basic + 100k commission my candidate was offered wasn’t going to cut it (school fees being what they are)- If that’s a problem at that level I can only imagine that for 19k odd it’s an even bigger one, at that salary £200 a month less might be the difference between paying your rent and being out on your arse.

I reckon if you provided van, insurance and a petrol card + a living wage you’d fill your job pretty quickly. As it stands it sounds like the variables make your job a risky proposition for someone for whom every penny counts.
If you want a decent person in your van perhaps you need to invest in them rather than asking them to share your risk.

I reckon if you provided van, insurance and a petrol card + a living wage you’d fill your job pretty quickly.

However, that doesn’t account for productivity. You might be better offering a basic wage then an OTE commission on top of that to prompt more work out of them. It’s often only when you dangle the carrot of more money that you start to get more out of people.

yeah commission or maybe profit share to motivate, I’m good with that. I cannot understand how the OP can have self employed drivers and not fall foul of the IR35 rules. Essentially society has already decreed that making people self employed in situations like this is unfair for the taxman and the employee, he must be exploiting a loophole.

That’s not always true, often poor managers use incentives as a way to get extra work out of people as that’s all they have. Offer a solid 17k salary, van and what not, recruit someone on a 3 month probation period, be very clear about exactly what you expect and extend a little trust and you might find that the person appreciates it and pays you back in ways you may not expect.

In business I have found that mostly you get what you give.

It’s often only when you dangle the carrot of more money that you start to get more out of people.

like them wanting your job offer for example.

like them wanting your job offer for example.

😆

I think most were saying it stopped you buying a home and would make it difficult to pay the additional costs associated with having a family

I’m not sure when owning your own home became a right, and regarding having a family, are people assuming you’d be supporting a complete family on just that money? You’d get a substantial amount of child tax credits when earning that much.

I never said it was unliveable that is your knee jerk response, I said it wasn’t quite “a good wage” as the OP had defined it, its actually only an average wage as defined by a 2006 study.

But I think it is quite a good wage for a driver. On a bigger picture it’s very crap because kicking a ball around on a Saturday afternoon could get me a couple of hundred thou per week. I can’t work out whether you’re very, very right or very, very wrong.

As you well know DS, I am never wrong.

I wouldn’t, actually.
Who are you?

Its not a wage though, it sounds more like OTE with lots of variabls and some risk involved.

I can’t also help but think that insentivising(?) drivers in this way is a very bad idea for road safety.

Well, if you’re not paying a mortgage you’ve got the rent to pay which, for lower value property, aren’t going to differ too much?

Nobody said home ownership is a right but it should be realistically attainable for people otherwise a situation will develop where a minority own the majority of the property.

£19.5k could get you a nice holiday in LA or Klosters perhaps?

I really wish people would stop harping on about ‘average’ wage

average is not the value you need to be looking at, it’s the median that’s more relevant. (EDIT not even sure median is best representation)

for example:

if you have 10 people, 9 of them earning 10k, and one earning 100k that gives an average wage (for that sample) of 19k

but you’d be completely ignoring the fact that 19k is 9k (almost double) more than what 90% of the people in the sample earn.

And in society there a vastly more people on lower wages than high, please people stop quoting averages wages as a comparison!!

if you have 10 people, 9 of them earning 10k, and one earning 100k that gives an average wage (for that sample) of 19k

Wouldn’t a smart person ignore the 100k because we can see clearly that it’s not a representative figure. But I hear what you’re saying.

From the link I posted on page 1. If anyone has bothered to read it, you can see that the median and the mean I quoted earlier in this case are not that far off each other…

Wouldn’t a smart person ignore the 100k because we can see clearly that it’s not a representative figure. But I hear what you’re saying.

yes they might, but the average does not ignore this value, thats my gripe.

and the fact that the values are close for some areas is not in dispute, its that they *are* different and a lot of people throw statistics about without knowing/noticing what the differences are and when one value is more relevant than another.

19.5 K !! …. yes please ,was on 24k till last year when i got made redundant, now working for just over 17 k 🙁 ….
if i was in devon i`d give you a ring !

lot of people throw statistics about without knowing/noticing what the differences are and when one value is more relevant than another.

What are you trying to say, you have mortally wounded me, I think you will find it was me throwing the stats about and I do happen to know the difference.

not to mention quoting incomes without the accompanying qualifying information such as costs of living etc

jesus toys back down a bit, im not attacking you

I’m just saying that there is always a lot of confusion with these things and that people need to make sure they understand the figures they are reading and the relevance.

I have not, anywhere, at any point said that i disagree with *you* or that *you* do not understand anything.

All I’m saying is that ‘average’ income on its own, without supporting information is not a good comparison.

you have mortally wounded me

Sorry this was supposed to be amusing irony…

Apparently reactionary is my recreation.

if that was ironic by implying you were not mortally wounded in order to counter your perception of me trying to wound you = ironic fail, since I was not trying to wound anyone 🙂

Indeed. Failure is how I like to spend the bits of spare time I have left after being reactionary.
tbh I wasn’t sure otherwise I’d have flamed you even harder…
1) Apologies again.
2) shake?

as i’m lolling my way thru this what am i seeing? a foundation year 1 doctor whining about his salary? really!! in august if all months. as a large part of my job is shepherding these precious little gems into a position where they don’t manage to damage someone, get off their tired post student backsides to do some actual graft and generally propel them into their second year with some semblance of a skill set (and a bit of a bump in salary) i’m frankly astonished they get away with earning this much.

i will point out to any medical types who want to take umbrage that looking after the fy1s is one of my favourite bits of my job. but it doesn’t disguise the fact that, if you’re that wee bit older, your training system was waaaay better and you were actually in a position to be of some use whereas the current mob are woefully underprepared for what’s about to engulf them.

oh and the nineteen grand thing. if my daughter said she wasn’t getting out of bed for that i’d smack her round the head. but she doesn’t and she does.

Indeed. Failure is how I like to spend the bits of spare time I have left after being reactionary.
tbh I wasn’t sure otherwise I’d have flamed you even harder…
1) Apologies again.
2) shake?

apologise? apologise! this is STW don’t you know? We don’t do any of that saying sorry nonsense. the correct response is to start an escalating flame war until TJ wades in to distract us all with a better target.

Anyway, us Devonians need to stick together 😉

it helps the Grockles target you

Sorry to drag this one up again guys…

Trailmonkey – Are you still looking for people?
If so please send me a mail: floydjt@hotmail.com

cheers
Justin