Should I start job hunting again or wait and see how it plays out?

n1guy

So I’ve either been very unlucky or employers are advertising temporary jobs as permanent in order to attract applicants.

long story short, made redundant in March from a job I’d been in 10 years.  I got a new job instantly, when I joined they were very busy working overtime etc, a month in work dries up and they start laying off,  seeing what was happening I started hunting and found a new job as my card was marked being the new guy. 3 months I lasted. 

New job is going the exact same way,  I’m only there 5 weeks or so when I started completely flat out, working overtime, leave was being refused to people, this past week we’re literally standing looking at each other, Co workers have told me they’ve never seen it so bad, and the manager tells me at the moment no new orders in the pipeline. 

It all just seems very strange, when I join they’re understaffed and over worked, then the work dries up, it’s like employers are panicking in the moment, perhaps deadlines to meet or whatever and in i appear.  They probably know no one wants a temporary zero hour contract role so advertise as permanent.

Unsure what to do? I can’t afford to be out of work,  do I wait and see how it plays out or start looking once again?

Dakta

Meet in middle, start looking and hope for the best

housebuyer143

What kind of work are you looking for? You might have been unlucky or maybe you are applying to smaller companies and should be trying to get in with larger ones which some buffer for a market downturn. 

TELLIT01

Something of a variation on a theme, my wife was made redundant and took what she was told was a 6 month fixed term contract to clear an admin backlog.  The work was completed in 5 weeks!  When she questioned how they thought it could take 6 months the response was that they had assumed all the filing cabinets were full of backlog items but nobody had actually checked before taking her on.  A positive from that though was that a few weeks later she got a call from the same company asking if she was interested in a permanent job.  No interview required because they had been so impressed with her in the short time she had been there.  She remained there until she reached retirement age last year.

n1guy

housebuyer143 said:

What kind of work are you looking for? You might have been unlucky or maybe you are applying to smaller companies and should be trying to get in with larger ones which some buffer for a market downturn. 

I’m a cabinet maker but have been taking jobs kinda below my skill level as can’t get an exact match for my skills but that doesn’t bother me, pay has been decent enough and less thinking involved so win win.  It’s all just a pain in the backside the looking and searching and trying to find a job that’s not like 40 hours over 3 days which seems to be popular these days. 

Undervalued

n1guy said:

So I’ve either been very unlucky or employers are advertising temporary jobs as permanent in order to attract applicants.

long story short, made redundant in March from a job I’d been in 10 years.  I got a new job instantly, when I joined they were very busy working overtime etc, a month in work dries up and they start laying off,  seeing what was happening I started hunting and found a new job as my card was marked being the new guy. 3 months I lasted. 

New job is going the exact same way,  I’m only there 5 weeks or so when I started completely flat out, working overtime, leave was being refused to people, this past week we’re literally standing looking at each other, Co workers have told me they’ve never seen it so bad, and the manager tells me at the moment no new orders in the pipeline. 

It all just seems very strange, when I join they’re understaffed and over worked, then the work dries up, it’s like employers are panicking in the moment, perhaps deadlines to meet or whatever and in i appear.  They probably know no one wants a temporary zero hour contract role so advertise as permanent.

Unsure what to do? I can’t afford to be out of work,  do I wait and see how it plays out or start looking once again?

Realistically "permanent" is virtually meaningless as there is very little job security in the first two years. Even after that, genuine redundancy is a perfectly legal reason to dismiss an employee, with fairly limited compensation, unless they have been employed for a long while.

Any business's circumstances can change, sometime quite rapidly and through no fault of the company itself.