Labour shortage

bugslet

It is a bit of a conundrum at the moment that we have a low unemployment rate at the moment, 4.7% ( it's not been lower since 1975, yet wages are stagnating.. That could be a reason why you are seeing churn??? People are looking constantly for the better paid jobs and moving accordingly.

getmore4less

One is a well established and reputable call centre (no cold calling, no selling) that has a problem retaining staff after the six week training period. Apparently there are a lot of people that sign up for the role, take the wages while training and leave to go and work in other call centres in the city to do the same thing.

Identifying the key reasons will be simple, addressing them may not.

It seems to be most if not all call centres in the local area are affected,

If the call centers have recruitment bonus system in place then that can explain job cycling within a closed community/industry with lots of networking, people just follow each other round collecting the bonus.

.............................................
Thinking about it, as a recruitment consultant in the sector you should know why this is happening.

Mr_Falling_Star

getmore4less wrote: »

Identifying the key reasons will be simple, addressing them may not.



If the call centers have recruitment bonus system in place then that can explain job cycling within a closed community/industry with lots of networking, people just follow each other round collecting the bonus.

.............................................
Thinking about it, as a recruitment consultant in the sector you should know why this is happening.

I am not a recruitment consultant and I do not work in the call centre or industrial sector, however I do look at trends and am interested to see if there is any anecdotal information out there so thank you to those who have already answered

getmore4less

There was an article on the radio(forget the station/program) discussing the shortage of seasonal labour.

In the old days school kids and students would form a significant portion of the seasonal labour for agriculture along with roving groups that would follow the harvest

I remember going out potato picking during the summer holidays a coach would come to the town and pick up a load of kids to take them to the farms.

These days it seems that this is no longer a job of choice for the UK young so much of the labour is imported significant amounts from Bulgaria and Romania(there were special visas a few years back).

The radio program suggested there could be a crisis this year and ongoing as the labour pool for seasonal work has plummeted and that it is time to market the jobs to the young in the UK as wages are now more reasonable.

here is an article for Jan 2017 that gives a bit more background context.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/18/decline-eu-workers-hitting-uk-agriculture-lords-inquiry-told

Dreamscometrue

goatfertility wrote: »

In my experience, crap companies that no one in their right mind would want to work for simply turn to recruitment agencies. That's the absolute truth of the matter.

The companies that use recruiters do so to disguise themselves and their terrible reputations.

I work (when I can get it) as an IT contractor & sadly all of the banks and large manufacturers use recruitment agencies for these roles.

TBagpuss

Mr_Falling_Star wrote: »

It's most if not all call centres, bad ones have always had high turnover, now what I am seeing/hearing is the better ones have high turnovers as well. Is this due to people taking advantage of them to take the training wage and then, as they know they will easily get a job elsewhere, just leave?

Why would they want to get a job elsewhere unless the original company is either paying lower wages that the alternatives, or offering worse working conditions?

Most people don't change jobs for the fun of it. If people are staying for training then going elsewhere that would suggest to me that either the company provides better training than others, but worse pay / conditions, or that it and the other companies are all unpleasant to work for so that employees move frequently in the faint hope of finding something better.

Manxman_in_exile

IAmWales wrote: »

There's a massive shortage of nurses in the NHS, and the problem is growing. Undervalued, (relatively) low wages, low morale, and now £40,000 of debt to qualify.

Certain areas of teaching also, although academies get around this by recruiting cheap, unqualified staff. The problem with that is not only the quality of teaching, but additional pressure on qualified staff to supervise and mentor.

I used to manage some NHS training contracts with our local university. I knew the bursary support had gone, but are we saying nursing students now have to pay their own fees as well?

asajj

goatfertility wrote: »

In my experience, crap companies that no one in their right mind would want to work for simply turn to recruitment agencies. That's the absolute truth of the matter.

The companies that use recruiters do so to disguise themselves and their terrible reputations.

I've worked in few reputable and good companies all of which would use recruitment consultants. There are many reasons for them to do that.

Mr Falling Star, I've heard some farmers are struggling to find people to work in their farms, especially in Yorkshire area. One particular example a farmer who voted for Brexit and now moaning about not being able to run his farm. So perhaps this is true in some parts of the country/for certain types of jobs.

I don't know if there is any legal issues but perhaps cost centres could have a clawback clause for training costs should people leave within a certain period of time after the training completed? This wouldn't make it easier to find people but would have an impact on staff turnover.

I used to work for a bank in Manchester who pays below industry average salaries for certain type of jobs but it was actually really good place to work. A lot of people would start working for them only to leave after a year and go to a competitor. They addressed the issue by reviewing the salaries and increasing them in line with the market rates. End result though , after couple of years, many of those roles were shipped to Poland.:eek: