Anyone Want to Know What Its Like Working on a Building Site Nowadays

Pobby

I will point out that there was serious cash to be made in the south east and I mean serious/ I also witnessed an almost obscene amount of spending by those raking it in. So much cash wasted when people could have paid down mortgages, credit cards and so on. No, got to have the latest plasma, all gone on tat and holidays.

I questioned what was going on and was told that they expected the building boom to last for many decades!!!!!!

Being somewhat not taken in by all the spin, I for one felt that the labour coming in from other parts of the world was OK at the time but also predicted that a back lash would be felt when we had a down turn.

Oh perhaps folk believed that Brown had brought an end to boom and bust. His promises on not letting the housing market get out of control was somewhere off the mark.

lostinrates

dopester wrote: »

And many a job, even so many ridiculous ones like personal shopping assistants to regular people... only came into being and were sustainable due to the credit bubble. .

I'dd add to credit bubble that service standard have dropped. Personal shoppers do no more than once good shopping assistants would have done really. But shops are busier,and service is worse, partly because of necessity for speed to get though customers, party because we have become such indiscriminate shoppers...the attitude is;so what if we get it worng...its cheap/ish.

kabayiri

tomstickland wrote: »

I don't hold a personal grudge against them for doing this, but the way that middle classes (including politicians) only saw it as a wonderful thing and ignored the pressure it put on the uk workers. It's only in the last year or so that it's been socially acceptable to talk about any negative effects of a lack of immigration policy.

This happened in the IT industry but no one took notice. For an 18 month period, after 2000, 30 thousand approvals were signed for foreign IT resource to come here and work on a permanent basis.

Unfortunately, this coincided with a post-dot-com dip, resulting in tough times for many in IT up until 2002/3.

I guess Government must respond to demands from industry to correct skills shortages, but it makes it hard for people to plan long term, because you get these peaks and troughs.

I think there would be outrage in Justice/Legal circles, or in Political circles, if we suggested outsourcing half their jobs to save money. As a result, law makers and power brokers don't really feel the pain.

carolt

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Except its not £65 ph is it. It probably takes between 1 and 2 hours to test and service a boiler and any gas fires. Add travelling time and its a long way from £65 per hour.
Try this little test - ring up several plumbers and see how fast they can get out to fix your boiler or fit a new GCH system.

You are deluded if you think plumbers will be working for £15 per day.

Close to 10 million homes subscribe to SKY TV.

Thats roughly 10 million homes that can afford close to £550 a year for their TV (including TV licence), I'd imagine that affordability is not an issue for them for a annual service costing £65.

When that number drops to 5 million, then plumbers should be worried.

I'll take any money if people wish to bet that the total numbers subscribing to SKY or another sport subscription channel will drop below 8 million in the next 3 years.

Surely easy winnings for deflation fanatics out there ?

Every job has travelling time.

Also, have to say that when we had our gas safety checks it took the guy no more than 15 mins max, and he lives a 5 minute drive away.

So £65 for that seems pretty generous, actually.

lostinrates

kabayiri wrote: »

I think there would be outrage in Justice/Legal circles, or in Political circles, if we suggested outsourcing half their jobs to save money. As a result, law makers and power brokers don't really feel the pain.

Some comercial legal work IS outsourced. In addition, thing that you would think would be handled here aren't: e.g. one firm's litigation work for EU is based almost totally in only one EU country, a lot of UK competition law, like the rest of europe's, is done in Brussels. In many cases lawyers move with the jobs.

Political admin HAS been outsourced.....to US, hasn't it?

ETA: primarily I think the work outsorced is administrative. In legal work this might, I don't know, particularly impact on legal executives or those qualifying through ILEX? At DH's firm the paralegal team is compartively smaller than I would have expected and lots of admin from a busy office is done remotely by a less busy office.

dopester

kennyboy66 wrote: »

You are deluded if you think plumbers will be working for £15 per day.

Yes, that might be on the deluded side - but perhaps not impossible either in time to come. In context I meant the day will come where they are thankful for £15 to £20 per boiler inspection job... with their travelling times/cost factored in.

There are stacks of plumbers (good ones.. maybe not all GasSafe though although I realise that is v.important for boiler work) around this area, and in many areas.

dopester wrote: »

I'll wait until Gas Safe registered/qualified engineers are very thankful for £15 to £20 to do the job.

That many on the premium SKY packages eh? We're on the basic and it's only SKY+ which allows us to easily record shows from all the basic channels (inc BBC) which has stopped us cancelling. We cancelled before but SKY charmed us by upgrading us for free to SKY+ (box and some extra work on installation.) W're looking at other devices to help us record digitally (we dislike Freeview as it is clunkier/slower to use compared to satellite).

We've already cancelled PetPlan, my private health policy went ages ago, and another relative cancelled their own recently - and I've got higher than average savings to fall back on. Maybe SKY's day of reckoning approaches too.

kennyboy66_2

dopester wrote: »

That many on the premium SKY packages eh?

Sadly yes.

SKY retail subscription revenue for the year ended June 2009 was £4.1 billion.

The ARPU (average revenue per user) was £464 (up £37) on the year - although this would include broadband. TV licence is £142, so I doubt my estimate of £550 per household is a million miles out.

Its beyond my comprehension (and yours no doubt), why so many people have Sky - but thems the facts.

kennyboy66_2

dopester wrote: »

We've already cancelled PetPlan, my private health policy went ages ago, and another relative cancelled their own recently - and I've got higher than average savings to fall back on.

I have never understood why people have insurance for other things than potential catastrophic loss. Eg Life insurance (if you have family), house insurance etc is all worth having as there is small risk but high impact.

PetPlans, Extended warranties, British Gas cover, mobile phone insurance, Dental plans, etc etc all seem a complete waste of money to me.

Pobby

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I have never understood why people have insurance for other things than potential catastrophic loss. Eg Life insurance (if you have family), house insurance etc is all worth having as there is small risk but high impact.

PetPlans, Extended warranties, British Gas cover, mobile phone insurance, Dental plans, etc etc all seem a complete waste of money to me.

I have had my monies worth over time for dental insurance. " root canal jobs and a cap to say nothing of lots of fillings.

kennyboy66_2

Pobby wrote: »

I have had my monies worth over time for dental insurance. " root canal jobs and a cap to say nothing of lots of fillings.

I should have added, that those type of policies are only worth having if you know (or have a good idea) that your risk is a fair bit higher than normal. Thats part of the reason why for most people they are poor value.