British Workers Wanted - Channel 4

[tim...]

from last night, still on catch up (I guess)

Didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know TBH

1) Benefits on offer to the "wont work" are far too generous if an unemployed person can say "I wouldn't get out of bed for 7.50 an hour" and/or "I rather spend the time at home with my girlfriend". We need to systematically reduce benefits for the fit and healthy the longer they are on benefits.

2) Employers have far too high an expectation from a minimum wage worker. The clue is in the word "minimum". Expecting a "self starter who can manage themselves and produce high quality work with the highest quantity of output", in an employee straight off the street is unreasonable. If someone

*can* achieve all that then they are a *senior* grade worker and they should be paid accordingly.

But for the majority, new hires require management *effort* to train themn in the way to do the job that you need doing, teaching them the tips to get the job done better/faster that if left to their own devices they will never discover AND wait several weeks/months (not just a few hours) for them to get up to speed. You cannot expect the education system to have trained up school leavers in every single job that might be encountered as a job seeker, that is the task of *management*. Stop whinging about how the available hires are lacking in these skills and do your own bloody job properly, before complaining that someone else can't do theirs properly.

3) The problem in 2 is exacerbated by the minimum wage being too high. This idea that any/every job should pay a "family living wage" is political nonsense. Employers must have the scope to pay people in training what they are worth to the company. And that is never going to be the living wage. Of course you have to ensure that once they reach the expected ability level employers do actually reward staff for that, and not just continue to pay them the in-training "pittance"

4) Why do employers waste so much money on agencies. I have no idea what margins for this type of casual work are, but most people with recruitment "skills" wouldn't get out of bed for 50 grand (they'll just go and work for an employer who pays them more). I understand that genuine casual work (such as catering at an event) requires agency staff, but if you have an ongoing requirement for a worker why the f*ck are you paying the agency margin week after week. Take the guy(/girl) on permanently and use the money saved to increase the guy's (girl's) wage when they reach the required performance level.

Until we solve these (completely self inflicted) problems, things are not going to improve

Oh and the current crop of school leavers needs to drop "the world owes us a living" attitude that some of them seem to have.

timmy

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd love to see the likes of you live on 7.50 an hour. But it will be the usual 'don't do as I do, but do as I say'.

[tim...]

1200 per month, perhaps 1000 after taxes 3-400 on a room in a shared house

6-700 for other expenses

seems perfectly adequate to me

When starting out in your career that's what you have to do

and yes it IS what I did

tim

[spuorgelgoog]

1. Because agency workers have even fewer rights than employees on zero hour contracts.
2. Because as the programme showed, interviewing workshy deadbeats takes up a lot of time and effort, hence cost.

Owain

[tim...]

not in the first years

because none of them have any rights

Well that just a cost of doing business that these people need to learn how to manage

tim

[Andy Burns]

Putting out the cans of value lager and wine in plastic cups was classy, but why were they surprised at the types that attracted?

[Harry Bloomfield]

tim... presented the following explanation :

As did I, but these days they expect and get everything now. A struggle to survive, until they get on a firm footing, is just not a part of their expected deal.

[John Rumm]

They do have some of that - the minimum wage for those under 20 is £5.13

There are also apprenticeship schemes where you can pay lower wages (~12K/year) in recognition that they are also receiving value from a defined package of training.

Not a perfect system by any means, but not quite as black and white as some would paint it.

Because from their point of view, its not a waste. Recruitment is a slow and expensive process - especially if you are a smaller firm and don't have a HR department to offload the process onto.

Its about managing risk, and retaining the ability to react to changes in the market. The employer may not be sure how long the position will last, or if a particular venture will be successful. Doing it on a temporary basis makes it possible to "try" when the risks to the employer would otherwise be to high.

[Robin]

it is a misconception that an employer can dismiss any employee in the first 2 years without risk.

Employees can bring a claim for unfair dismissal on grounds of discrimination ( age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation). And other things such as exercising their rights not to work Sundays.

And the Supreme Court struck down charges for employees taking claims to the ET so it's a free shot for them.

[Robin]

+1

France is notoriously worse but that doesn't mean the UK is an easy place to be an employer.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm not up-to-date with what's on offer, but I thought benefits for those who are in theory able to work are only available if they can show they are actively looking for work.

I have brought many new graduates into the computing industry. Back when I started doing this in the 1980's, it took about 2 years before they started paying back - until that point they are consuming more management/training resources than they contribute back in work. So unless they stay for probably 4-5 years, they were only a drain on the company. This was within a large UK company (GEC).

I imagine this is the same at whatever level you are recruiting (grads or school leavers), although the payback period may vary.

The computing industry and type of graduates have changed since then, and people who will take 4-5 years to payback won't get a job offer in the first place now. OTOH, university training is more relevant to the job now too, so those grads who enter the industry can become more productive significantly faster than 30+ years ago. Summer internships and sandwich courses are also really important for computing grads to be someway up to speed when they look for their first job, and things like visible opensource work - that's a significant change from 30 years ago.

This is always a difficult balance. The UK did a stunningly good job of maintaining almost full employment through the last recession - much better than any other country which was hit by it, and all the parties involved (Labour, the coalition, and Conservatives) are due significant praise in achieving this which is, I think, a first during any recession. This means the balance was about right for the economic climate.

There will always be people who can't do £7.50 worth of work in an hour (and that applies wherever you set the limit), and a minimum wage makes people below that level of productivity unemployable. Living on the minimum wage will be a struggle whenever it's set to avoid large amounts of unemployment, and being employed should always be better than being unemployed or it generates wrong incentives. The balance is in getting this right.

Same argument as why do people sell houses through estate agents. Many companies simply don't have the time or skills or contacts to find the candidates they need. There's also a legal reason for engaging staff through an intermediary if you don't want them to be classed as employees (and that might well go in the budget).

There are some other things that need sorting such as unpaid internships need banning, but that will be hard on political parties so it probably won't happen.

[Yellow]

Thanks for the review and I will try to watch on catch up later.

It is what many of us already know but it still has to be demonstrated sometimes, to remind people what is really going on here and I am particularly interested in your observations about the minimum and living wage and agree that for youngsters with no work skills in their first employment, it is too high. As are benefits.

Where I used to work we took on apprentices as well as trainees for non- engineering roles and to start with they take more than they contribute, eating in to the time of the skilled people they are working with and their output of course often required rework. And that is fine, part of the deal, but if you have to pay them almost as much as you have to pay skilled folk it becomes less attractive to take on the ones who need to most initial help.

And of course there is your final comment which is in part of product of both some politician and most of the media telling young people how hard done by they are and how good everyone over the age of 30 had it before them - free running jobs, cheap housing and free education - except it wasn't like that at all for so many of us.

The problems and issues were not the same, that is for sure, but times are always tough for some and good for others and to keep being fed this idea that you are being stolen from when in fact you simply have to make the most of the opportunities that are there for the taking - the same as every other generation in the past.

I get particularly pissed off at the young ones who think that they should be able to leave home and fall into a job that will pay for a whole house to themselves, fully furnished, together with new cars, holidays and nights out. We NEVER had that.

Instead we all have 10th hand cars that we'd help each other to keep running, we had holidays in Blackpool if at all and would only go to the pub on pay day. And we *all* lived at home with our parents while we saved for a house deposit rather than wasting it on rent!

And I haven't even watched the show yet. :-)

[Yellow]

It is a hell of a lot more than I earned when I was an apprentice, where we had enough for travel, food, one evening out with just a couple of beers and to pay at bit of 'rent' to Mum and Dad.

And we accepted that because rather than contribute, we initially cost the company money to train us.

Looking back, perhaps we should have got a bit more, but at the end of it we came out trained and with skills enough to command a decent wage in the future and was because the company was prepared to take the hit on us initially rather than employ folks who already had more skills.

[Dan S. MacAbre]

When I started work in the stores of a factory, we were like the lowest of the low. The company wanted to give us a slightly bigger pay rise than everyone else. A quid a week, something like that. The union kicked up a fuss about 'differentials', so it never happened.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - when starting out in your career. You didn't make that distinction when referring to unemployment benefits. And the young unemployed already get less than the older.

Unemployment benefit is already far less than the OAP. Are you suggesting that is super generous too?

[Graeme]

In message , tim... writes

As did I Tim, and probably most who are reading this, and are of our age group. I started in a shared furnished flat, then bought my first house, not in the best part of town. Moved in with nothing new. Everything, from cutlery and crockery to bedding and towels to furniture and carpets was scrounged from friends and family. The spare bedroom was bare floorboards and no furniture, but I didn't care. It was home. An ancient B&W TV. Later, a twin tub. Eventually given a 1930s dining table, with chairs! Bedroom furniture was immediate post war plywood 'utility' furniture. Cooker a prehistoric New World. Second hand carpet tiles I scrounged from an office I worked in at the time. Drove a series of old bangers bought cheaply, insured TPF&T only. I had moved from East Herts to Bristol, and visited family using my thumb, to save fuel I couldn't afford. Took washing home to Mum in a cardboard suitcase. Cut the grass with shears because I didn't have a mower. Fed the cat left over mashed potato and gravy. But I was young, single, independent, and happy :-)

I sincerely doubt I was earning as much as today's minimum wage.

[John Rumm]

They have, they outsource the job to a specialist and pay them to do it.

[tim...]

the woman in the agency said that she was fed up with people coming into her office and saying

"can you sign this"

"Um, why?"

"so that I can get my benefits this week"

she didn't say whether she signed it or sent them off with flea in their ear.

But in any case I don't think that the enforcement of the rule is as active as it might be. It seems more aimed at punishing people for truing up late for their signing on appointment because their bus was cancelled, than actually checking up if people are reasonably turning down work, or not.

but we aren't talking that sort of work

the example that we saw was someone pushing laundry through a finishing roller

It was apparent from the assessment report that he didn't do this fast enough, but it was also apparent that he had been give no instruction on now to do it efficiently and was only assed over a couple of days trial.

there's no reason why the "charity" exemption can't continue whilst cracking down on the pretence when used for "real jobs"

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You must have had an odd union. And a very shortsighted one. If management offer a pay rise to one group of workers that would normally be accepted gratefully. Then the subject of differentials brought up at the next round of pay talks.

[Yellow]

And that is an issue with the so called living wage now that politicians want to bump up to being the sort of money a semi-skilled person would earn.

Just watching the show Tim is talking about now and one fellow said he wanted £12 or £15 an hour for a low skilled job or he wasn't interested.

First, how are these people living now?

And second, £15 an hour!!! That is over 30 grand a year.