UK 'jobs miracle' turns into employers' nightmare

It's not about people 'rethinking their careers'. That's media guff. Brexit has removed the migrant labour that kept the economy going, far more aggressively than anywhere else, by isolating the UK from its largest and closest trading partner.

This 'miracle' is actually how you kill an economy with an inflationary spiral. You are seeing it first in the UK with Brexit, but it will spread - like Covid - globally, as other nations block migrant labour. Like most populist political policies, those who benefit love it at first, but it is unsustainable, and will soon cause severe damage to the economy, jobs, tax revenue, services and livelihoods.

The actual figures don’t support this biased piece, very few left with brexit, but during the COVID restrictions, while some left the country many left the industry as while furloughed they found other work that was better paid and less unsociable hours and they found they didn’t have to flog them selves in to the ground to earn a living wage.

The hospitality industry has been known for a long time to be badly paid and the hours are long, hard, seriously and unnecessarily inconvenient. The industry needs to reform its wage structure and working practices but instead they blame brexit and anything else.

Those employers who value their employees and have changed to provide better conditions and reasonable hours are not finding anything like the same recruitment problems.

The shortage of workers may be "leading to pay growth and some improvements in employment terms, but it doesn't help the economy at all," he said.

The interests of workers and rentiers are rarely congruent. It is the job of governments supposedly by the people to correct the deficiencies of capitalist markets.

The hospitality industry has been known for a long time to be badly paid and the hours are long, hard, seriously and unnecessarily inconvenient. The industry needs to reform its wage structure and working practices but instead they blame brexit and anything else.

Well put.

GBR48: between 2019 and 2022 the number of EU citizens employed in the UK fell by just 20k. The total number of non-UK citizens working rose by more than 400k. And post-Covid, labour shortages are reported in many countries.

Also, over the last 2 years the number of people not working and receiving benefits (chiefly, Universal Credit) has risen sharply, no doubt reinforced by the Govt’s furlough scheme and people then not returning to the labour force. The number not working receiving Universal Credit as of May this year stood at a massive 3.5million.

It very much appears that the shortage has everything to do with people’s attitude to working and very little to do with Brexit.

People learned they could live on much less money, so 2nd jobs in a family weren't needed.

Low skill, low pay jobs are almost always thankless.

Rather than closing completely, some places here have cut back their hours greatly. Instead of 11a-9p, they open only 11a-1p, and 5p-7p.

Some jobs require actually being at work. Those are the hardest hit everywhere. For my industry, covid forced employers to change, I'd been working 100% from home since 2008 and 50% from 2000-2008. There are times when being in a specific place at a specific time is still required, but that isn't the rule, it is the exception, in my industry.

The Eastern European subjected of the most applying employment practices, judged/highlighted in the Taylor review, fully endorsed by The Scottish Affairs Committee as bordering on modern slavery.

Oversea employment gang master/agency/ non direct/fake self-employment.

Piece work, pattern hours/zero hours contracts. No written statement of terms and conditions. No transparent ethical employment supply chain management. just-in-time employment arrangement roles in hospitality, retail and warehousing….

Not to mention on the spot employment termination

An example…….

UK chicken farming puts workers and food safety at risk

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/dec/22/uk-chicken-farming-puts-workers-and-food-safety-at-risk

You wonder GBR48 when the supply of Eastern European worker dries up, due to Covid/Brexit that UK worker having none of this nonsense.     

Pay a living wage, with full terms and condition or go bust.

I have zero tolerance, along with zero sympathy for these charlatan employers.

and great Albion is coming to its end...no more colonies to exploit,no new big wars around corner,no another countries in sight to be exploited and yes not enough of cheap slaves from east europe in sight...

Times have changed a bit, independent from Covid too. But the ways or methods to bring employers and employees together haven’t changed or adapted. Where is that unidirectional rule written, that only I have to walk by restaurants with vacancies, that only I have to write , pay and send hundreds of applications, that only I have to think about a design and attractive appearance of a LinkedIn entry to be found and selected? No, the companies can as well make themselves known, send me their profile and applications into my letter box or email account. The employers of course have still the longer arm and more economic power, but not this completely one-sided way. They have to change a bit and adapt to modern and digital times too.

In order to woo workers, companies are having to offer better pay and conditions.

Who could have imagined it!

A tiny, narrow silver lining of the pandemic is that a lot of people that had to switch careers found out their new lives were better (because of pay or free time or a less stressful occupation for example), these people ended up noticing that they deserved better.

The problem is not that people are not going back to bad jobs, the problem was the situation where they were forced to do them in the first place.

The consequences of Brexit were also quite obvious from the beginning, people still voted to do it.

@MarcPenn. You are wrong. Those who are unemployed receive Job Seekers Allowance, not universal credit. UC is for those on low incomes to help meet their living costs. Many employed people are on UC, as are those on disability benefits etc. Due to the cost of living crisis and low wages in some sectors, the number receiving UC has gone up. The unemployment rate has gone down, as are the numbers of those receiving JSA.

Start cutting benefits... those job vacancies will soon be taken.

@mr kipling. There are more jobs available than those qualified or willing to take them. Why slog for minimum wage at unsocial hours when you can get better pay and conditions elsewhere.

Eastmen writing the real drive of UK, even listening to Genesis album Calling all stations, they play songs like Congo perfectly reflecting british all masters of colonization rights. They are eating that now.

@Luddite;

No, you are at the very least out of date. JSA is almost phased out and UC is paid to both those in work and out. The total number of recipients in May’22 was 5.1 million, of who 3.5million were not working.

You can download all the data on UC for yourself from Dept Work & Pensions DWP Stat Xplore.