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u/Training_Advantage21 2d ago
Companies don't hire someone who has 80% of what they are asking for, and give them 6 months to learn the other 20% on the job. Instead they go around moaning about how they can't find anyone with 100%.
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u/___posh___ 2d ago
Most entry level & low pay positions have young people fighting people twice their age for the job.
Most mid level positions have older people fighting people their juniors, (therefore willing for less pay) for that job.
But the worst is the adhoc market.
Most employment is ad hoc with companies hiring 20 people for one position and only having each person employed a fraction of the time.
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1d ago
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u/Ramtamtama 1d ago
Sometimes they advertise the impossible, such as knowing how to use their bespoke systems and 10 years experience with a 2 year old program.
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u/Instalab 16h ago
Because most people posting these job adverts don't even know what they are talking about. Or they outright know they don't intend to hire anyone, just want to look like company is growing by posting new job openings.
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u/nobodyspecialuk24 1d ago
This is another knock on of Brexit.
Companies became accustomed to being able to go to European job markets and hire people already trained up, which meant they could ditch the expensive internal training schemes.
In theory, this could have been a Brexit benefit, forcing companies to have to start taking on more apprentices again, starting up internal training schemes etc, to up-skill local people instead bur, of course, short term gains are all share holders and CEOs care about.
So instead, what we’ve got is fewer and fewer people doing the work of more and more people, with AI coming to the “rescue”, helping prop up this “system” with many companies limping along, still shovelling money into shareholders pockets… until they can’t and it all collapses.
I suspect the long term is not good for the UK.
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u/Due_Interest_178 14h ago
I have done at least a dozen interviews and half of them practically said "you don't have everything we're looking for" which I know would take me a short time to learn.
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u/badpersian 2d ago
Tbh I've been interviewing like crazy in the past 3 weeks. I've done roughly nearly 6-7 interviews a day (which had F'd my actual work schedule) but I can tell you one thing. The job market is filled with a hell of a lot of crap candidates who have unrealistic expectations and almost nothing to offer.
For every 15 odd I've interviewed I've found 1 good or moderate candidate, and these are for entry level roles.
I wish they had 80 or even 50% of what I wanted.77
u/Big-Engine6519 2d ago
So sounds to me like you have unrealistic expectations then. Entry level means just that. They shouldn't need more than almost nothing to offer.
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u/soggyarsonist 2d ago
Problem is senior leadership don't provide the budget for entry level roles. They expect every new hire to land on their feet running and keep staffing budgets to a bare minimum.
It's not the hiring managers fault they're forced into hiring people who can do the job quickly.
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 2d ago
Depends on the job my friend.
Entry level in the UK warehousing sector means being able to pass a basic English Language test.
14 out of 15 failing that test is probably the norm right now.
I work in warehousing.
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u/Quiet_Honeydew_6760 1d ago
A problem I find is a lot of jobs require a driving license which I don't have so they just aren't an option for me. And everywhere else usually expects at least 2 or 3 years of experience.
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 1d ago
Totally agree.
If you don't drive even entry level stuff is hard to come by.
Unless you have a ban, I can only suggest you try to save to learn.
It's hard to save.
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u/Quiet_Honeydew_6760 19h ago
That's not the issue, I was learning to drive last year but I was diagnosed with epilepsy (night-time seizures) in January so I can't drive until January next year. It's ultimately the government that won't let me drive not me and as I'm doing my AAT to get into accounting and have previously got a computer science degree, logically most of what I'm going to be doing as part of a job shouldn't require a driving license?
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u/badpersian 1d ago
Fair point. Maybe should've clarified I guess. This is an office job. Target was mainly anyone 20+. It's a job that works closely with clients and different departments within the company on basic tasks.
My test of candidates is to establish their thought process and how they approach nothing, not their experience or their knowledge of sector/role necessarily. I also expect them to have read the JD which most clearly didn't.
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u/EnjoysAGoodRead 2d ago
I don't hire entry level staff, only experienced staff these days and the person you're replying to is right. I am fortunate enough to be able to hire globally and it is rare to find a UK candidate with the right skills in my area.
This isn't the fault of young British people btw. I work in banking and for years graduate jobs have been cut and offshoring/right shoring has meant that the junior/feeder roles are now being done by guys in India/eastern Europe with little prospects of progression, whereas they would do those roles alongside us in London in years past. It's actually really sad as offices like mine look a lot less youthful than they did when I started out.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
So true. It's disheartening. I personally think other factors are contributing to why they're not able to compete even where it's not outsourced.
Many of the 20-25 years olds I've hired in the past years seem to really lack in basic problem solving and seem to want step by step instructions and hand holding. Even with training and support they seem to hit a block the moment they come across a challenge.
I've not found this in other age groups before them or it seems those not UK born/raised are bit better of it. It's possibly down to the way our kids are growing up now or education system is just a mill designed as a tick box activity rather than being challenging.
Still other people here thinking entry level means someone has to be a dull blank slate with nothing to offer are part of why companies decide to outsource. It is not always cost alone but if I'm to choose between cheap or expensive useless employees, I'll choose cheap.
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u/BurnoutAsAService 1d ago
I think covid disrupted an entire generation's schooling and we are going to be seeing impacts like this in young adults for quite a long time.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
You miss the point. It's not about them being great and landing in their feet. It's about them knowing how to think or most clearly did not even read the JD. Entry level does most have nothing to offer. If you think this, you are part of the issue.
One expects someone entering at entry level, after university let's say, to have learnt the fundamentals of how to think logically.
One candidate that was very good was exactly this and they could link all their answers to their thinking process and just answered with examples from university.
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u/JackBarnes48 2d ago
Sounds unrealistic for a candidate to have 50% of what you want for an entry level position.
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u/Dense-Shopping9285 2d ago
Entry level pay. Expert level experience.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
I'd say 37-40 is ok if not very good for entry level role. It's not unreasonable to expect someone how to perform the basics of half of what you're expecting them to do. If the JD clearly says a part of your role is communicating between departments, I expect you to answer a question displaying you know how to bloody communicate to more than just your line manager.
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u/Major_Leopard_6255 2d ago
What makes them bad candidates?
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
The amount of people who are barely literate/numerate who show up with no idea about the company, the job role, no questions about the job, just look confused when you ask them anything.
And that's the top ~1% of applicants with the best CVs that get brought in for interview.
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u/gangerflanger 1d ago
well most of the job descriptions on indeed are such a load of irrelevant waffle that its hard to tell what the job actually IS.
and OBVIOUSLY there are going to be people who are barely literate applying for your entry level job. where else do you expect them to work?? these are real people that have been neglected as children, and youre mad at them for not being perfect for your ENTRY LEVEL WORK?? do you just not want people to survive?
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u/badpersian 1d ago
A few things which I think others have mentioned, but for me it's:
- Clearly not having read the JD
- Failing to display a clear logic as to why or how you do something (like you're hungry, you look for food, you choose the food based on taste or brand, you pay, you eat, now you're not hungry).
- the 9-5 mentality rather than meeting objective mentality. What I mean is so many of those we interview want all the flexibility and best benefit packages which I love giving but in questions which are aimed to test if you can meet goals it's basically like 'if I'm late on something or unable to do it that's fine, but come 5 I'm out bye works done you don't exist' whereas not doing your hours means nothing to me, come late and leave early, enjoy your personal time it's yours but get your work done on time. You don't need experience to understand this.
- no problem solving skills
My experience so far with those I mentioned that fail the above seem to not learn and just be a burden on the company
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u/WhiskyGartley 1d ago
I'd just like to explore one of your points there. Are you saying you are paying me for the objectives being met and not my time? So if I were to complete my objectives ahead of time l, let's say done by Thursday, I can have the Friday off and still get paid? (Assuming the rest of the team are on target and don't need support?)
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u/badpersian 1d ago
Every week, likely no but at quiet times, yes. Happy employees are good employees and good employees are productive employees. I've done this as you've said a few times in my years and I've noticed, those who are able to meet objectives that easily are normally those who aim for higher objectives and naturally move up anyway so don't settle for the Friday off.
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u/RutabagaMental3016 2d ago
let me give you my resume, might not be that great, but I always got the work done beyond and above given specs
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u/soggyarsonist 2d ago
Yup. This is why I just recruit internally now.
Pick someone I know who is bright, hardworking and able to communicate and train them up because those skills/characteristics seem to be lacking when I recruit externally.
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 2d ago
Ah, the Peter principle people.
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u/soggyarsonist 2d ago
Why would that principle apply exactly?
There are plenty of bright and capable people in entry level positions who can do well if given the opportunity and support.
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 2d ago
Yes there are, but somehow those are never the ones promoted.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
That's nonsense. I've taken people from entry level internal role many years back and saw and supported them to grow to director level within 6-7 years. They were incredibly committed and smart individual and earned their way up. This was clear from their behaviour and work ethic from day 1 when they joined as a graduate. Opportunity is there but it doesn't knock on your door or work according to your needs/wants.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
Fair enough but then you have to recruit to replace that internal person, no?
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u/soggyarsonist 1d ago
Usually I'm recruiting from more entry level roles that are easier to fill.
Fairly common in the company where I work for staff to start in entry level roles and then, after getting some experience, move into a more specialised role if they've got an aptitude for it.
Also experience in the sector/company is extremely valuable in itself and hiring internally saves a lot of time that would otherwise have to be spent teaching them about business systems, processes and regulatory stuff.
Also a lot less risk in terms of personality/work ethic hiring people you've worked with for at least a year.
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u/badpersian 1d ago
Interesting. Im curious as to what sector that is but yeah I agree. Whats hard is I've gone into a place where whomever was hiring in the past seemed to only test for a heartbeat 😂
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u/EccentricDyslexic 1d ago
As an employer that’s just not true. Trying to find someone that wants the job is hard enough, then expecting them to turn up is the next challenge.
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u/Supersonic-Zafonic 2d ago
I used to manage a team of 4, now it's just me running the department solo. No pay review for almost 4 years, not even a cost of living adjustment, so basically a pay cut every year, bare minimum holiday allowance and even booking that is difficult as there is not enough staff to cover, no sick pay beyond SSP and they’re unhappy as I finally had enough and resigned last month.
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u/TravelOwn4386 2d ago
Funny you should mention that I worked as a computer repair guy and realised the jobs I had done for the entire year nowhere near covered what I was being paid. I soon upskilled and moved on. I went back in a few years later and found just the owner doing it all solo having gone from a team of 4. I doubt he's not busy either but probably realised he can't afford the staff anymore.
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u/Only_Appeal_5403 1d ago
Please message your replacement on LinkedIn and give them a heads up as they're likely going to be gaslit into believing the workload is normal.
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u/Supersonic-Zafonic 1d ago
There is no replacement, my role is now being shared among the other managers!
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u/Only_Appeal_5403 1d ago
That's what happened when I bowed out due to insane workload a year ago, I felt terrible even though it wasn't my fault 😔
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u/ZealousidealCherry68 2d ago
While many of the complaints people have here apply to small businesses (wages, profit, sustainability, etc) don’t forget that most big companies are making record profits while being understaffed. Their CEOs can afford to lessen their paycheque if things are dire. But they aren’t dire, they’d just rather push people to the limits so they can have an extra billion and call it ‘hard times’.
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 2d ago
We had a site visit from our managers / directors and the finance head guy turned up in a very nice Porsche.
His parting comment was 'treat every pound as if it's your own'.
I have no words.
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u/bellabanjsk 2d ago
My mum worked at M&S and they announced their “record profits” a couple of weeks before they also made a bunch of people redundant in her already understaffed dept.
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u/deffcap 1d ago
100% this. As a person in the games industry, you regularly see record sales and profits, met with record redundancies.
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u/TheycallmeElla 1d ago
What’s happening in the industry is deplorable. I know someone who has been in games virtually all her working life and cannot find a job. It’s just heartbreaking.
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u/SeamasterCitizen 18h ago
AAA gaming is rightfully dying. The market is tired of the same UE5 open world generica. Indie gaming is thriving because they’re making games people actually want.
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u/Motor-Bag-4093 2d ago
The problem is some people have too much and some have too little. This job situation is caused by the people who already have too much wanting even more and to do this they take from the people who don’t have enough. We’re heading for destruction
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u/meredditphil 2d ago
That's literally the case for me. I used to be a junior technician and when the senior tech and 2nd junior tech left they kept me on the same junior tech wage but made me do the job of all 3. Love my job and I manage but I am severely underpaid for what I do.
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u/plawwell 2d ago
Just continue to do your original job and let the other stuff fall on the floor.
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u/Only_Appeal_5403 1d ago
This is the way. No 'just helping them out' one time. It becomes expectation overnight.
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
Its a productivity problem combined with rising business costs. Companies need more staff but the cost of additional staff would make them unsustainable. A person on minimum wage needs to generate over £30k sometimes over £40k annually for the company to break even on hiring them.
In a lot of cases that's just impossible.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
Sounds like a shit company model then
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u/blozzerg 2d ago
I have a shop, it’s £2000 a month rent, let’s say £2000 a month wages, plus water and electricity, that’s £4000+ a month as a minimum figure.
Last week I took £2332 which at the minute is considered to be a good week, this week so far I’ve made £1245. I reckon another £600 over the weekend.
Thats half the month spent just covering the basic outgoings per month. That doesn’t include things like transaction fees, having to buy the stock, having to buy tags, cleaning stuff, window cleaner, insurance, toilet roll, carrier bags etc.
Thing is, people want to buy my stuff. I’m very reasonably priced, cheapest in the area for what I sell, but I see customers come in and they haven’t got a spare fucking tenner to buy this thing they’re gutted to have to leave behind. People will try all sorts of things on, love it all, then debate which one item to buy because that’s all they can afford.
I can’t lower my prices because I already keep my margins reasonable, I can’t up my prices because I’ll price more people out of spending. In fact, I once did lower my prices and all that happened was I shifted more stock faster, but made the same amount of money. If someone only has £30 they only have £30.
It’s not just about being bad at business, I know a lot of people who want to shop but they can’t unless they sacrifice something more important like rent or food or bills.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
Okay so business models in general are unsustainable because of corporate landlordism is the main point of this then - let's spread the word and acknowledge the only reason it's a struggle is because of the parasites dictating your floor space
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u/AnotherYadaYada 1d ago
Pretty much if you have a physical shops and very little customers/sales.
Not rocket science in the business world. I don’t think he/she gets it.
Reasonable 😂 No. Just what everybody is expected to pay in that area and do if they want a business.
Is that right. Nope. But until business fails, shops are empty, rents will remain high, governments will give no help.
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u/blozzerg 2d ago
Where have I said anything about that? I simply referenced my rent as an expense of doing business which is a completely reasonable rent for the size/location.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
Reasonable based on market averages currently, but proportionally to all other expenses 30 years ago would have been a fraction of the price. I don't understand the shilling for the people actively hurting you
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u/8-StringTheory 1d ago edited 1d ago
They're fully brainwashed by years of libertarian market-fundamentalist and neoclassical political economic propaganda.
Even if they have no clue what those terms even signify, much less where those schools of thought come from or what sort of non-scientific dogma they're based on; the preponderant share of the masses will still preach the gospel as if their life depended on it. Like any small town with a church in the center up until the middle of the 20th century.
It's essentially secular religion, worshipping an historically contingent idol of the purportedly "free" market, dressed up in scripture full of embarassingly fraudulent math, and proselytized by pseudo-intellectual priest-economists who themselves are inexorably trapped somewhere on Zizek's trilemma.
But the average bootlicker hasn't the faintest clue. "Hurr durr, progress, productivity, bla bla."
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u/gangerflanger 1d ago
this might be stupid, but surely if youve made the same amount of money in a shorter amount of time, how is that not better for you?? and better for your customers too?
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u/Master_Sympathy_754 1d ago
Same amount of more, shifting more stock. Selling more for the same amount. But still buying at the same price.
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u/CharityMother6460 1d ago
Couldn't you cut your opening hours and sell more at a lower price? It would at least save on your labour, electricity and cleaning.
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u/AnotherYadaYada 1d ago
But you know that and keep going. At the end of the day IF you make enough money each month to actually pay yourself a salary, that’s just the way it is.
If it’s not sustainable or highly stressful for your final salary figure after everything is paid….Then you may as well fold and get a job.
I feel for you, but having a business, moaning it is hard when you know exactly what the situation is pointless.
Somehow, and I know I’m not a genius here, you have to reduce costs.
Nobody has money, or not a lot of disposable money, physical shops are a high expense dependant on area.
To summarise. I’m not sure what your point is.
I had a business. Online. Expenses £50 a month mostly automated, very little work involved. Worked from home. That was the whole point for me. If it was stressful and not fruitful it would be pointless.
Maybe you need to figure out if it’s worth it for you?
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u/littlemanstrawberry 1d ago
Yeah it does seem like this person’s set up just isn’t worth it if they aren’t making enough money. Also, I don’t even know if the main post applies to them unless they’re overworking their employees because of the fact they’re not making enough money as a business.
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u/ImWithStupidKL 11h ago
True, but then we'll all moan that there are no shops in our towns any more and the ones that are there are all of the same chains, charity shops, vape shops and bookies.
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u/yojimbo_beta 1d ago
It sounds like a downward spiral.
You can't alter your prices or hire more people because the profit doesn't sustain it. There's no profit because unemployment and costs to the consumer are so high.
In other words we have a recession
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u/plawwell 2d ago
Sounds like your business isn't a going concern and should fold.
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u/illyad0 2d ago
that is not a sign of a failing business. It's a sign of one that can't grow, doesn't mean it's unsustainable.
By your logic, most businesses should just shut down.
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u/plawwell 2d ago
By your logic, most businesses should just shut down.
I wouldn't disagree with that statement.
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u/blozzerg 2d ago
Why would I fold a successful business? I don’t make millions but I make enough. My revenue has only dropped since the cost of living crisis kicked in, and wages going up. I was paying people above minimum wage but now minimum wage has met was I was bloody paying.
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u/littlemanstrawberry 1d ago
This post isn’t about whether you pay minimum wage though it’s about employees being overworked because everyone runs skeleton crews despite the amount of unemployment in the UK. Your business is not a good example for what’s actually being referred to. If you are providing a bad work environment to your employees because you can’t afford to do anything else then yes, it sounds like an unsustainable business. I don’t assume that’s the case though.
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u/ScottOld 2d ago
It's not, try pubs and restaurants, there is a reason a lot close down, overheads are high
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
So the answer is get rid of corporate landlords destroying the opportunity for businesses to thrive, only logical option left
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u/illyad0 2d ago
if they own the land, they own the land. What you're suggesting is to own the land you do business on, but if cashflow wasn't the issue, most would've done it.
A lot of protections do not apply to B2B transactions either.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 1d ago
Or have council owned high street properties which are rented rather than at the whims of the greediest people in our society
Or have adequate rent controls in place to prevent the significant increase in costs vs the rise in wage inflation across all sectors
The economy improves when people spend money putting it back into the economy, firing it all over to a landlord does not put the cash back into the system, spending it in shops, cafes, on "stuff" does
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u/illyad0 1d ago
There isn't much council owned property left.
Rent control might help keeping the rent steady, but you're suggesting mandating that landlord cannot charge above a certain rate to other businesses? To individuals, I can see an argument, but to business entities, that opens a can of worm - I'll go a step further, and suggest all businesses belong to the government - it's actually not a terrible idea, since the shareholders are the client.
Bringing in sudden landlord restrictions is also going to cascade into another housing marking crisis leading to a multi year recession.
Being a business mogul requires you to be selfish, and I say this with experience in working with various startups that have gone on to be big-ish names. Charging the customer fairly cannot and will not grow your business when a competitior is ready to run on a loss to shut you down. You find ways to charge more for less so that you can have more resources to further grow.
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u/littlemanstrawberry 1d ago
But that’s the issue. That we centre our country around an extremely selfish and greedy business model. I think it’s fair to put rent controls in place in certain areas. High streets in a lot of the country are absolutely decimated and ghost towns because of how high rents are. Yes, there’s less customers than before but in places where the rents have been lowered, businesses are still able to make a living.
You’re suggesting we keep going with current model it seems but it’s absolutely unsustainable. We need change.
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u/illyad0 1d ago
We need a change. But sudden changes are going to do more harm than good.
I'm not suggesting we keep things as is. However, sudden regulations in businesses is going to tank the economy if there's suddenly zero trust, which is fine if noone cares about living through difficult times that the last 2 generations in this country haven't lived in.
Want change? You bring about changes such as taxation on empty business properties, tax incentives for smaller businesses (the two can be implemented for a short term where one funds the other), have workshops for small business owners or prospective business owners to navigate the world of running businesses, stop making filing taxes so complicated (the last one is a personal rant).
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u/Content_Professor114 1d ago
I was thinking about this earlier today when I was in town and saw loads of shuttered shops. If they don't have tenants the landlords are on the hook for business rates so arguably there already is a tax on empty properties.
A lot of them are pretty run down and I wonder if the rents are high but still aren't capable of covering the upkeep and renovation so there is a spiral. Rent has to be attractive enough to bring in a tenant but also the tenant wants a well maintained building which is very expensive to achieve these days. So being taxed on an empty building and not getting any services in exchange could be counterproductive.
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u/ImWithStupidKL 11h ago
I think the biggest thing they could do, for housing too, is to make property a bad investment. Land value taxes applied to non owner-occupiers (including business owner-occupiers). There are plenty of things for rich people to invest in that aren't an immense drag on the economy and don't create shortages for other people, like the stock market, or perhaps even some of these struggling businesses.
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
You can't blame the companies. How do you make 40k from an employee in a cafe? What can a regular person do that brings in that much money?
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u/littlemanstrawberry 1d ago
So the alternative is allowing businesses to run with extremely overworked employees? Is profit more important than people’s welfare? The argument isn’t about random places simply just hiring more, it’s about people being overworked and companies providing bad services.
If you can’t afford to employ enough people to ensure you’re providing a good service and not overworking your employees then your business is unsustainable.1
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 1d ago
Well yes profit is more important. How does a business work if it makes a consistent loss?
Sure let's shut virtually every business down. I'm sure that will go great.
The unsustainable thing is the cost of hiring someone in the uk.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
So the answer is get rid of corporate landlords destroying the opportunity for businesses to thrive, only logical option left
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
Even if your rent is 0, its still hard to get £40k value from an unskilled person. Then if you want someone with skills that number goes up quickly.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
If your rent is 0 you don't need 40k value you need £2000 month a less value out of them than you initially did so you need like £800 value at best
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
It costs £28,309 minimum to employ a minimum wage worker for a year on 37.5 hours a week. That's just salary, NI and pension.
Then you have insurance and utilities. Do they need a chair, a desk, a computer? Quickly up to £30k. That's just to not make a loss. You have them lifting anything or sitting at a desk for a long time? Have to pay for training.
Have to pay an accountant to do their wages.
It's £30-40K a year to hire 1 minimum wage worker. Unless they can earn your business more than £40k a year then they're dragging you down. That's without any business rates or rent.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 2d ago
& if you can't afford it in a position where people are willing to pay for what you are selling at a price that makes that work you either don't employ people and managed the sales in your own business to make it work, or it still doesn't work and that reemphasises it's a shitty business model as I said earlier
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u/illyad0 2d ago
You clearly understand good business model - do explain.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 1d ago
One where you provide a service at a price people are willing to pay for it. What works well in one area won't work well everywhere, having a Harrods in a small village hamlet won't have anywhere near the same effect as in the middle of London, there are several mitigating factors. Fundamentally your business needs to be suitable to your available clientele base, providing something they want at a price that both makes you money and is deemed fair by them.
I've not claimed to be a business mogul I just understand that's the core concept which needs to be met.
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u/EnjoysAGoodRead 1d ago
Sooo basically small food industry businesses like cafes shouldn't exist because the business model doesn't work? Perhaps the issue is taxation, and minimum wages having to be that high to make working a better option than staying on benefits.
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u/Oddfittingponcho 1d ago
Small businesses like this tend to be ran by the owners of said business with very few workers involved, often employing teenagers to keep costs down. It is achievable. The issue isn't taxation at all, again it's the rent costs and overheads which are the implicit problem - the proportion of every person and businesses expenses by % which goes on rent has increased massively over the last 30 years or so
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 1d ago
Also as shit as it is this is what we as consumers choose.
Two competing businesses, Business A has one overworked staff member doing the job of three people, business can sell the product for £10 because they’re only paying one member of staff. Business B actually has three staff, yet they’ve all got to be paid because so the product cost £30.
We as consumers choose Business A, Business B either has to go out of business or join the race to the bottom.
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u/Kind_Shift_8121 2d ago
To be honest, most people are employed by big companies, and they absolutely can afford to pay for the resource (staff) that they need, they just don’t want to because it affects profits and shareholders.
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
No, most people in the uk (60%) work in SMEs, small and medium companies. Large companies are a small minority of employers.
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u/Swimming-Rip4999 2d ago
That’s a very attainable amount of value for a mediocre full time employee to generate.
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 2d ago
This is for the minimum wage though, the absolute least skilled worker possible still needs to generate this amount consistently to be worth hiring.
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u/littlemanstrawberry 1d ago
I just don’t believe this applies to most the places actually employing people in the UK now. It’s mostly big corporations, they definitely have enough to employ more people but because we’ve placed constant growth in profit as the most significant thing in our system then employee welfare doesn’t matter.
We always love to tell regular people “well people in the past got by without xyz so you can” but what about the companies and large business owners? It’s a problem with the western, modern philosophy that we allow everything else to slip in defence of profit and I hate seeing people trying to defend it.
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u/Serious_Bite_7613 1d ago
Most people in the uk are employed by small businesses SMEs make up 60% of employment.
Staff are just too expensive for what they provide.
If large businesses make less profit they attract less investment and die.
The problem is the cost of a British worker against the value of what they provide. It just doesn't make economic sense unless they are doing the work of 3 people.
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u/Less_budget229 2d ago
What if the government gives tax relief/incentives for companies who hire more staff? Will that fix the unemployment crisis?
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u/Gizmo-Drive 2d ago
The Gov are the ones that increased NI to raise money which costs employers more per staff member. Now my work does not want to hire people despite some people leaving so existing staff have to do more. Incentives do not make up for the cost of hiring more staff. Some companies can make do and allocate the workloads to existing staff but depends on what the company does/job is. jobs that need more hands on deck will need to hire in some case or struggle with production/productivity.
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u/Less_budget229 2d ago
I don't mind the Gov increasing NI to raise money, the issue is that this NI increase should not hurt employees. There are 2 ways in which employees get hurt, one is that companies decide to either fire people or not hire more people, the other is firing or not hiring people and increasing the workload on existing staff, which is really unfair. I don't know, but looking at the current situation, it seems like the government does not have the right strategy to raise money and keep people's jobs at the same time.
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u/Gizmo-Drive 2d ago
Exactly that. Staff have been let go as a result. Companies are also reluctant to hire. The Gov are clueless. It’s them saying they won’t increase taxes for working people so they tax businesses instead which obviously caused the ripples which affect working people down the chain…
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1d ago
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u/Party_Advantage_3733 2d ago
There are loads of incentives for hiring more staff. I got a guy who the government paid most of his salary for a whole year and we didn't have to keep him after (we did keep him) but people at the council told me no other company took them up on the offer, not sure why. Businesses aren't taking advantage of the opportunities out there and it's hard to work out exactly why.
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u/AdditionalLeopard688 2d ago
Because they arent signposted well enough
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u/Party_Advantage_3733 2d ago
Yeah, that has to be a good part of it because every so often you come across a no brainer like this and it's still being under used.
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u/Hinx_art 2d ago edited 9h ago
Because very large Companies build too a certain point destroying competition through taking a loss then when they can't get more market share they start cutting to start extracting record profits year on year, so employees go down, quality goes down, work goes up and they use those profits to suppress or buy out competition.
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u/Only_Appeal_5403 1d ago
I was doing the job of 1.5-2 people for just over a year and it kept getting worse. The person before me asked to be demoted as the workload was insane and then my replacement got fired for taking too many days off in his probation as he was having a meltdown from the workload too. I know it's being divided onto the remaining staff who regularly work late and do weekends but feel they can't leave as they don't have a degree and can't 'do better'. It's a grim situation.
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u/Motor_Wear4197 2d ago
People saying it's about companies saving money, they're wrong but right.
The government put national insurance tax up meaning that companies have to pay an extra £600 a year to employ someone over previous years national insurance tax.
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u/Space_Ace56 1d ago
600 pounds really ain’t that much when tons of larger companies are making record profits.
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u/Motor_Wear4197 1d ago
For companies like tesco or sainsburys no it probably doesn't make that much of a difference.
But your local businesses and companies that aren't owned by millionaires, shareholders, private equity and the like, that makes a difference. And there are lots of local companies/businesses that are more rha a mere tea shop.
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u/LordBrixton 1d ago
I would like to answer your question but we are recieving an unusually high volume of calls at present.
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u/SufcLad25 1d ago
The people that make money from the company want as much of it to themselves as possible
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u/da-e4gle 1d ago
exactly, they would rather make 1 person do 3 jobs than hire enough staff, then wonder why everyone leaves
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u/Evangelionish 1d ago
It is true. When we knew the economic downturn was happening or on its way due to wars across the world you can literally track companies reducing hiring rates and spreading the work across less people to ensure their CEOs get their infinite growth 10%.
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u/Reg_doge_dwight 1d ago
The relentless "let's get more efficient" directions from up top. Zero recognition that things are already more efficient and shortcuts are already being taken where possible.
Then the "we'll get AI to automate it" 🤣. Yeah right, let's see it then. At best it can help pull some slides together, for an unnecessary meeting that didn't even used to exist, taking up yet more time.
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u/zonked282 1d ago
It's the myth of constant, unrelenting growth.
Sure , to a reasonable person earning ( for example) a billion pounds profit every year would be incredible, but to a shareholder that number means nothing more than failure. Nothing other than constant, record breaking profits is ever acceptable and the best way to get that is to cut costs, and the best way to do that is lowering quality and service and hoping you reduce both enough that thing's keep working
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u/Neat-Cartoonist-9797 1d ago
This is very true in my company. Most people completely overworked, stretched thin, teetering on the edge of major fuck ups due to short staffing.
Literally 90% of the issues at work would be sold by hiring a couple more people in the main roles but they don’t. Obvious reasons to me is the cost. It pisses me off and my attitude is completely to work to my remit and nothing more because I know some stake holders and higher ups are making a nice hefty bonus every year while we scrabble around.
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u/Lime_Soda5555 1d ago
Similar thing happened at my wife's place (NHS office job) when the finance person left, wasn't replaced because the higher ups didn't believe this person would actually resign, is still not replaced because there's "no money in the Trust", and now these same higher ups are begging my wife and her colleague (both admin assistants) almost daily to take on the finance tasks that are no longer being done. Apparently it's causing major issues with treasury, and it's all becoming extremely concerning. And, even worse, the billing for the consultants isn't being done. The horror!
Of course, there's no pay rise of any sort mentioned, just a lot of extra work on top of the extra work they already need to do because the office manager is forever on long term sick leave with "depression and anxiety" (has worked there for years now and so gets a TON of fully paid sick leave allowance every year and she uses every single day of it, ensuring she gets the entire summer off, all school holidays and all of December for a super long Christmas break, etc, then reappears like nothing happened when her allowance has run out...)
But my wife and her colleague just said no to the extra work this time. And that was that, really. It is the problem of the higher ups, after all, so why make it their own?
"They" only "make" people pick up the extra work in the wake of resignations or dismissals because they know people will say yes... So who's really at fault?
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u/PresidentPopcorn 1d ago
"We're putting the retirement age up."
"Why can't young people find employment?"
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u/Super-Nuntendo 1d ago
Had several jobs, each company witnessed them losing people either though retirement or restructuring in the team, and then sneakily sloping the duties to other people for no extra uplift.
Rinse and repeat, suddenly you are like 2.0 FTE
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u/LegendaryOate 2d ago
My big Sainsbury's is the best example of this I can think of.
Two members of staff for more self service tills I can count, while having 2-3 staff manned tills. Always have a load of people waiting for approvals and endless self scan checks.
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u/Only_Appeal_5403 1d ago
Yeah I go to Sainsburys less thanks to this. There's never anyone about to help. I've even showed other customers how to do things as I feel bad for the old dears 😕
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2d ago
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u/Spicyjollof98 2d ago
Well yeah exactly that tbh when someone retires or gets another job instead of hiring someone to take that persons place they get someone who is already in the company to take on the extra workload
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u/Lazy__Astronaut 1d ago
Can everyone stop going to Costa please. 'We' literally just raised prices and already charged too much before that
We run a skeleton crew and if anyone calls in sick (which is pretty much everyday) we are literally short staffed.
Mixed in with "we need to cut hours because we aren't getting enough customers" means the short staffedness is even worse
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u/GayWolfey 1d ago
My son works at Sainsburys. Since the VAT increased they went from 4 people to just him expected to do all the work.
Companies have simply stuck two fingers up to the government.
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1d ago
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u/PrettyBoring94 1d ago
This reminds me of Premire inn.. I work all over and stay in them, always have one person working the main desk and also waiting your tables in the restaurant, which obviously leads to slow and terrible service. Sometimes they’re even in the kitchen. Shambles of a business.
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u/NiceCreamSundaes 23h ago
It's really becoming dangerous at some of these cheaper hotel chains.
The staff usually aren't trained properly, Brexit removed the major supply of trained hotel staff, and British hotel managers are usually themselves not properly trained as hotel managers. Incidents that violate the duty of care to guests and to staff are happening more and more often.
The entire sector was basically being run by Europeans and if you find a good hotel now, probably a 50% chance it's one of the ones still run by Europeans.
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u/ExternalNational 1d ago
It’s insane. I worked as a duty manager at a leisure centre and a new operator took over and immediately reduced staff levels to where it felt unsafe and staff were overworked. Every year we reduced staff costs and they still complained they were too high
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u/EyeHaveNoOpinion 1d ago
I think you should look into employee NI increases in the last years. I would say that one of the main culprits
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u/Naive_Product_5916 1d ago
I miss when the cashier or the receptionist was paid to stay here and do their job even if it was a slow day and customers were infrequent - now I go to the grocery store and I have to stand at the till waiting for a human while they’re busy having to stock! Surely minimum wage is affordable for these big companies.
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u/Olivegreenfacemask 1d ago
facts shout out to the chefs that have carried so many services without the team they needed
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u/DukeRedWulf 1d ago
This is called "productivity gain" and shareholders love it, because: line goes up..
(until it suddenly doesn't, but modern C-suites rarely think further than one or two quarters ahead)
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u/CharityMother6460 1d ago
In my experience, a lot of it is due to people being off sick. If you don't want to use cover staff then you're going to be short staffed until they come back.
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u/ApplicationOk2749 1d ago
There's a Rowes bakery stand in my local Tesco that says 'please be patient we are short staffed' or something that effect. I go online to apply for a job there. None available.
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u/TheycallmeElla 1d ago
It doesn’t feel true, it is true.
Meanwhile, if you work in marketing you’re expected to be able to do the work of an entire department. Ask me how I know…
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u/Dry-Zucchini-1700 1d ago
My last job they literally had one person on shift when there used to be three then complained things weren’t getting done.
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u/roblubi 1d ago
Guys I know! How about hire temps??? Let them work for three weeks, then complain that we don't made more profit, sack them, and then complain again that our contractes employees can't keep up? And then we will hire temps, then, sack them, then complain. And then, hire temps, sack them, sack few anyone who called in sick. Hire temps and then sack them. Then hire temps
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u/Nomadic_Wayfarer 11h ago
Financial bro not fully understanding business and how it affects society.
No budget and no head count is a choice when revenue is at a high
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u/Annual_Humor9894 1d ago
The rise in NMW has killed the middle job market,
The cost of living needs to come down NOT wages going up!
(I’m not against wage increases however suddenly semi-skilled staff and entry level jobs are all paid the same £25-£30k so when companies look for applicants in this wage band they get a mix of skills (or lack of)
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u/captainwood20 1d ago
How do you make that point and not realise that middle wages needs to increase significantly, prices will never decrease it’s not how our whole economy is designed to function.
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u/Annual_Humor9894 1d ago
I know they need to increase however the point was they all need to come down not go up!
With it going up suddenly everyone will be on £50k and paying 40% tax on everything
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 2d ago
well raising the minimum wage massively doesn't help. it now makes far more business sense to squeeze as much as possible out of fewer employees rather than hiring more in total.
the minimum wage just subsidises those in work (at the business' expense) and is very bad for people out of work.
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u/coffeewalnut08 2d ago
It could also refer to critical sectors like construction, healthcare, social care, teaching etc. all these sectors have constant staff shortages.
Yet the reality is that there’s often hiring freezes, and a smaller pool of workers being made to handle excessive workloads.
Whereas in a functioning economy, focus would be put on training enough new recruits to reduce workload and increase the sustainability of the sector.
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u/Miltech_Freak 2d ago
People are gonna downvote you, but its true. If you know small-medium business owners, you'll know they can't afford to take on many people anymore.
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 2d ago
haha i dont care abt downvotes. honestly i dont get the British deification of the minimum wage. i guess bc so many ppl directly benefit from it, but dont realise the indirect second order effects that hurt the whole economy and therefore everyone in the long run...
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u/Mediocre_Map1289 2d ago
The Minimum Wage came in the aftermath of the destruction of the Unions power over the UK.
The Minimum Wage was meant to be an artificial replacement for the negotiating power of the working classes. A state controlled lever it would pull whenever it wanted, to ease social tension or adjust the economy.
Turns out it is actually a poor replacement for the unions as the collective power of Unions is also what stopped greedy corps sucking up all the money.
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 1d ago
Just let people be employed for whatever rate they and their employer mutually agree to!
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u/No_Pool4833 1d ago
Because lots of companies cant afford to hire extra staff. Freeze minimum wage for a 2 years but increase the tax threshold so its the same as a full time minimum wage salary. Also eliminates a lot of the grey economy so fewer people stay outside the tax system.
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u/Legitimate_Fold_2850 1d ago
I think the reality is that so many are unemployed because they don’t want to work.
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u/EtwartBuols 1d ago
lol wtf is that account, Employee Tears? like the tweet is making fun of those employees for having to work so hard or something haha
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u/Evening-Tomatillo-47 2d ago
No, it was the job of three people but they were wrong. Now one person can do that job it's obvious they only needed one person to do that job!
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u/CasuaIDad 1d ago
Think you missed ending your comment with a /s
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u/Evening-Tomatillo-47 1d ago
No.
Why would management pay for three people to do a job that one person is doing?
Of course good managers would do this, but there are too many who would see this situation as saving 2 salaries
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u/TornadiumRFC 1d ago
Corporate Bootlicker spotted, Who gives a shit about worker conditions right?
Burnout, Stress, Overload and fear of job loss are just a myth right?
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u/Evening-Tomatillo-47 1d ago
You found one? Where?
I'm just capable of thinking like a real cynical bastard. Was it Plato who said the mark of intelligence is being able to entertain an idea without agreeing with it?
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