The boss told two of us today that he had been approached by someone he once employed who is being made redundant. Given this guy’s experience and qualifications, he should be getting paid at least £35k.

However, he offered to work for £19k just to get a job.

Any of this going on in your sector and will it lead to a race to the (bottom) ie minimum wage?

I sincerely hope not..

it’s clearly not going to do anyone any favours.

However I work in the cycle trade so my wages can’t get much lower. I’d have to start paying them..

this is a tricky one but it’s what happens every time two companys bid for a contract and one is lower priced than the other (or, I guess, when we buy bike parts having searched online for the cheapest price).

It’s not nice when it happens to you but it’s only a micro version of how the world works?

Have you ever needed to buy anything and looked for the cheapest price at which you could get what you wanted?

Capitalism, innit?

I’m still working for the same day rate I was 7 years ago. Heard last night that we’ve lost a nice patio job to a lower price (after it was confirmed that we had it) We’re being undercut all the time by people who are either not from this country or who are freshly unemployed. No overheads and no insurance but who cares ?

same here sub contractor doing double glazing the majority of the work i do is for 1 company and they keep cutting everyone’s throats on the prices and reducing the fitting rate for us.

That combined with increasing cost of fuel and this is looking like a very bad financial year/future

I’m on the same day rate as 4 years ago and am constantly having to justify costs, spend so much time making sure evert penny is accounted for.

Mrs mW’s departmental workload has doubled in 18 months while the number of staff has gone from 5 to 3. They’ve also been made to pay 1% of their salary if they want to carry on using the car park despite requiring a car in order to work across two sites. She is coming home shattered and while I think she should jack it in for her own wellbeing, that would ultimately only make things worse.

Reading that back it sounds more desperate than it really is but things are very finely balanced, it really wouldn’t take much for things to go tits up.

I feel sorry for anyone entering employment at the moment, it must seem like a complete sh!tpit.

The IT sector has been dropping its rates for years. You need to be able to offer a better service to justify keeping your rates the same year on year or do something radical to put them up.

No reason salaries shouldn’t be the same. Endless pay rises for doing the same thing are a luxury and I can see no reason why salaries shouldn’t go down as well as up.

Have you ever needed to buy anything and looked for the cheapest price at which you could get what you wanted?

That’s pretty glib but is symptomatic of the short-termism endemic in today’s markets. It may work for a while if you’re buying a finished article but if you chase the lowest price for a service you’ll end up paying for the least worst.

That’s pretty glib but is symptomatic of the short-termism endemic in today’s markets. It may work for a while if you’re buying a finished article but if you chase the lowest price for a service you’ll end up paying for the least worst.

Not necessarily. Especially with people. £2k/day will get you a gormless history graduate from one of the big system integrators to build your new shiny IT system. £100/day will get you an Indian specialist who actually know what he’s doing.

Endless pay rises for doing the same thing are a luxury and I can see no reason why salaries shouldn’t go down as well as up.

It’s not really a case of endless pay rises for most people though, if the cost of housing, services, fuel and food continue go up year on year and salaries stay the same then people are effectively receiving a pay cut.

As an example. we use a joint account for all household spending, bills, mortgage, insurance etc. compared to 18 months ago we have to pay in 20% more into that account to cover the same outgoings. Neither of our incomes have risen in that time.

It’s not really a case of endless pay rises for most people though, if the cost of housing, services, fuel and food continue go up year on year and salaries stay the same then people are effectively receiving a pay cut.

Yes, I’m aware of that. Salary is connected to your competitive value rather than inflation though. You can get an environment in some sectors where inflation is going up but the value of your services are going down. The example I know well is IT, where competition from overseas has driven down rates. I’m sure other sectors can end up with the same end-result.

The only way to be sure you’ll earn more is to provide a better service. Doing the same thing and wanting to charge more for it is a thing of the past, in IT at least.

Not necessarily. Especially with people. £2k/day will get you a gormless history graduate from one of the big system integrators to build your new shiny IT system. £100/day will get you an Indian specialist who actually know what he’s doing.

In that particular case, maybe, in the short term. In the longer term your gormless graduate undercuts the Indian guy, then your price-led punter ends up buying an idiot at a “saving”.

In that particular case, maybe, in the short term. In the longer term your gormless graduate undercuts the Indian guy, then your price-led punter ends up buying an idiot at a “saving”.

Nothing wrong with competition. I bet the Indian fella can always undercut the fella who spends all day sussing out his next snowboarding holiday.

The reality is that new models and more effective ways of working emerge. People will always find ways of doing the same job in less time if the pay isn’t so good. Or they go and do something else and rates start to go back up.

Doing the same thing and wanting to charge more for it is a thing of the past

If only that were true of gas, electric, telecoms, taxation, retail, fuel, public transport and housing then we’d all be OK.

If only that were true of gas, electric, telecoms, taxation, retail, fuel, public transport and housing then we’d all be OK.

Yeah. Ironically cheap overseas competition goes hand-in-hand with competition for resources. Tax on the other hand… we can do without that.

5thElefant, totally agree with what you are saying which is why we offer a design service, home visits to discuss materials and supplying samples of those materials. Which makes it all the more galling when someone else comes along and takes the job away.

Not necessarily. Especially with people. £2k/day will get you a gormless history graduate from one of the big system integrators to build your new shiny IT system. £100/day will get you an Indian specialist who actually know what he’s doing.

I’m on a good rate, but I’ve recently been picking up crap thats’ been produced by a couple of senior managers at a couple of big system integrators… kinda brings it home when they are invoicing the same per day as I invoice per week.

I’m in the building trade and for the last two years people (subbies) have been “buying” work, ie undercutting others just to cover material costs and basic labour to keep in with contractors. Had a ceiling fixer who was so close to the edge we didn’t employ him because we didn’t think he could provide materials let alone labour!! It’s bad at the moment!!

Working labour only at the moment and named my price at £330 per day, 6 days a week, on a 6 week contract.

I’d guess the agency guys on site probably cost around £200-250 per day, but seeing as I do around twice as much work as them, it would seem that I’m not bad vfm.

What you doing artist?? Site engineering??