MSE News: Jobs market 'set to get worse'

dandelionclock30

Investing the the workforce and the development of the country.!
I think the British public need to become more active though and vote with their money e.g not buying goods from companies that have ceased employing U.K workers and set up abroad instead. e.g Cadburys and Twinnings which have now gone to poland. Stop buying their(Cadbury) chocolate simple.
Its o.k people moaning but there are things people can do to which hits these companies.
Also banking with companies that dont employ call centres in India etc. If we are totally apathetic and do nothing then we will continue to be walked all over by the buisness class and the ruling elite.

LadyMissA

Emmzi wrote: »

*sigh*

Do you research ANYTHING you post about?

Sorry? That we were all on differenct salaries for the same job?

dickydonkin

I think the British public need to become more active though and vote with their money e.g not buying goods from companies that have ceased employing U.K workers and set up abroad instead.

I agree - but in the real world, you will then be really restricted for choice.

We would have to walk around naked as most of the clothing we buy is manufactured in eastern Europe or Asia - and just have a look at where the majority of products sold in the likes of B&Q are manufactured - in China.

In the US where they used to label their own manufactured products "Made with Pride in the USA" (although they probably still do) I was very surprised to discover on a recent trip that they also import a lot of items from China.

If a patriotic nation like the USA cannot support their own industries, then what chance do we have here in the UK?

To keep buying British is a great principle - but realistically, unachievable.

Broadwood

DCFC79 wrote: »

thats just crazy, 24 hours a day, your hardly restricting as your being realistic with 9 till 6.

In the industry I choose to be in, if I said that I could only work between 0900 and 1800 I would NEVER get any work !

There isn't a single hour of ANY of the seven days in the week that I haven't worked sometime or other to make a living.

Get real !!

Vincent_Buenisedes

Broadwood wrote: »

In the industry I choose to be in, if I said that I could only work between 0900 and 1800 I would NEVER get any work !

There isn't a single hour of ANY of the seven days in the week that I haven't worked sometime or other to make a living.

Get real !!

Depends on the industry. Skilled workers tend to have 9-5 jobs while lower quality employees (outside essential workers) tend to work any hours as it is unskilled and easily replacable.

tagq2

Vincent_Buenisedes wrote: »

Depends on the industry. Skilled workers tend to have 9-5 jobs while lower quality employees (outside essential workers) tend to work any hours as it is unskilled and easily replacable.

Are there many skilled labourers (as a proportion of the total market) with skills in such short supply that they can be choosy?

I suggest that it's usually the nature of the industry which determines the hours, not any shortage of workers.

Broadwood

tagq2 wrote: »

Are there many skilled labourers (as a proportion of the total market) with skills in such short supply that they can be choosy?

I suggest that it's usually the nature of the industry which determines the hours, not any shortage of workers.

Totally agree there.

Also from a practical and economic point of view I much prefer commuting when the roads are quiet (usually late morning and around midnight). When driving at work I travel outbound before the evening rush, then travel back to base after the rush is over.

From the company's viewpoint, journeys are far more reliable and predictable at night, and costs are lower overall if trucks are in use 24 hours a day. As I clock off the next shift takes the truck back out again....again....again.

dtsazza

Thanks for replying tagq2, you make some good points to counter my views.

tagq2 wrote: »

Yes, this is a common counterargument. If the law and practice were - say - to increase the value of any redundancy pay in proportion to number of days worked, there should be little disincentive to keeping people on for a short or even medium term trial.

Very true, I agree. Though it creates a different situation where the cost of making someone redundant increases day by day (or month by month), which possibly creates a perverse incentive to ditch someone now if you're in doubt rather than give them a few more months to try and turn it around. I suppose it depends how much the redundancy payment is compared to how productive the reformed employee is hoped to be.

The question to ask is: why was this person not dealt with earlier? IOW, what poor process didn't discipline or retrain or reassign or fire him? It is easy to blame the law or another external entity which can take the punches and doesn't answer back but it's more likely that the organisation has some internal problems.

It does depend on whether it's a failure of the process of the law. If the organisation decides (correctly) that they want to fire this person but employment regulations prevent them from doing so, then the law is at fault. If the organisation decides wrongly that they want to fire this person, the law is correct.

My view has always been the libertarian one that if in doubt, don't make a law about it. A company with bad processes will lose market share and ultimately be destroyed by other companies that know how to get the best out of their employees - but a bad law won't naturally disappear, and often there's additional friction to the discrete process of repealing it.

Are you quite sure that he has to stay exactly where he is not-doing what he is supposed to do "due to regulations"? Which regulation?

Since I wasn't directly involved in the situation (and certainly not from a legal perspective), I don't know exactly what. But my understanding is that it's not as simple as the company saying "you're no good at this job, we're giving you your notice", but having to prove that they aren't fulfilling their contractual obligations in such a way that would hold up at a tribunal.

Although in fairness I was using this as an example of the costs of hypothetical regulations making it harder to fire people.

Well, the workers don't control the means of production - it depends on how the human resource is applied.

The workers are the means of production, unless you're talking about purely unskilled manual work. And I doubt you'd disagree that some people are "better at a job" (whatever that entails) than others. Whether that's due to quasi-permanent effects such as innate aptitudes, or temporary effects such as having had more experience(/training).

Optimum functioning requires a demonstration of loyalty... top-performing candidates [are] not going to provide the best service [if] they're not going to be there for more than a few months.

That's probably true, though I don't think it's an entirely linear function. There's probably a wide band above "about to quit" and below "ecstatic" which shows very little variation in performance; I propose it's a factor which only has a marked effect when it's abnormal in either direction.

In any case, you could treat all of your employees the same in either situation; if you're loyal to a more able workforce you'll still get more out of them than if you're exactly as loyal to a less able workforce. (Unless of course ability was correlated with personality traits making it hard to keep happy, though I'm not sure this is the case.)

Well, happiness is the ultimate measure of standard of living. A certain amount of stuff increases happiness, but many other variables apply with predictable labels such as freedom, security, opportunity, community, justice, safety, health...

Yes, I did wonder whether I should have chosen a different term, as stuff can be construed as iPods and latt!s and DVD players and Playstations etc. I really meant the sum total of everything that we consume, including those abstract concepts such as friendship and self-realisation.

Also, at the risk of getting on a particular hobby horse, there is no "same way" as long as an employer('s human form) has the protection of limited liability and can shrug, fire everyone and wind up his company.

That is true. It would be interesting to see what commerce would look like in a world without limited liability; I suspect that it would effectively remove the ability to delegate, or to take any risks with financing expansion, so you'd end up with companies of no more than ten employees growing very slowly. Perhaps that's better than what we currently have, though entire industries would be impossible.

In the meantime, the saviour is - as with everything in life - aligned incentives. Why would a business owner fire everyone if they're doing a good job and making more money for the company than they cost?

Would it be better for a racist employer to be allowed to only hire one race? A sexist to make it clear that he gets to wolf-whistle at the ladies if they want a job there? Better to know up front who you're dealing with rather than discrimination behind your back, right?

Quite frankly yes, I think it would. You can't stop someone being racist via legislation, and hiring has to be a personal decision based on a multitude of factors including some that are based on one's own impression of the candidate.

As mentioned above, if someone turns down the best candidates due to bigotry, that company will be less competitive than a company which hires all of the best candidates, and the bigotry will hurt their bottom line.

If you could force someone to hire the best candidate then I might agree with you, but when you can only force someone to hire to a quota - possibly overlooking the best candidates because they happen to be White British - that's in no way productive.

Besides, if someone gets brought in just to meet the quota, and represents the loss of a candidate that the employer preferred, how well do you think they're going to be treated at that job?

I in no way condone racism/sexism/*-ism, but you ultimately can't fix it through legislation, only education. You cannot make someone change how they view someone, by passing a law.

Legislation can't stop everyone trying to flout the law, but it will try to make undesirable behaviour so fraught with risk (especially if the other party has the appropriate legal protection - union/insurance/whatever) that a businessman will either work within society's boundaries or go elsewhere.

Well, legislation is the law, but I know what you mean, and I broadly agree.

My big concern is one of collateral damage. Whenever a law is introduced, it's imperative that the benefits it brings are greater than the accidental negative consequences that it also introduces. Especially taking into account that it's much more difficult to repeal a law than it is simply not to introduce it in the first place; and given that things change a lot over time, there'd better be a big margin for error. If in doubt, I'd rather they don't legislate - most laws should be "self-evidently" correct, and we have all the essential ones to hold society together already.

out_of_cash

rhcp wrote: »

I read that Germany's unemployment figures are now at their lowest level for 11 years. What are they doing that we are not.

They have good contracts with far east electronics companys for one, something our goverment and previous ones fail to do,manufacturing is nearly destroyed in the uk and as long as we have the warehouse mentality of europe, thats where we will stay,building ware houses and 20 supermarkets in every town.

When they talk of job creation, its always at the lowest wage structure.Next up "subway" that will pay your mortgage