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Local labour shortage


Muckle Oxters
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Consider  earnings against the cost of living and using that benchmark then the above comments by ghostrider is entirely correct.

Many standard products and foodstuffs have risen 3 fold over last 20 odd years but  average wages certainly have not, having been depressed by the massive surplus of foreign labour from cheaper economies - Supply and demand.

 

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On 07/09/2021 at 08:56, shetlander said:

If the minimum wage not being enough is the issue, are there really that many folk locally who (a) are currently living off benefits but want to/are able to work and (b) would be attracted to jobs in those sectors if wages were to be increased?

I think it might surprise a lot of folk just how many people are in (a). 

One of the big problems is zero hours contracts, as they pretty much eliminate people from being abe to claim the "Top up" benefits, as there isn't a fixed weekly/monthly wage. Might be £400 this week, but only £100 next week.

In that sense, a carefully structured UBI would certainly be a better system, so long as it still offers an incentive to work.

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You'll never get UBI under a Tory government in Westmonster.  They hate anyone getting anything for free unless it is them and theirs.

The hospitality industry has always been one for exploiting people, and my experience of it here was no different.  I was living in Hoofields and applied for a job at one of the hotels here.  The owner seemed keen, and even suggested that I should move out of Hoofields into one of the staff rooms in the hotel.  He certainly wasn't offering that to benefit me.  He obviously wanted me living over the shop so that I could be on call 24 hours a day.  If I had a share in the business it might have had some attraction, but as a minimum wage flunky I was definitely not interested, and let him know that the job was very much a stop gap until a proper job came along.  Hard work, poor pay, long hours, tied accommodation, little thanks, who would be queueing up to work in such an industry?

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On 25/09/2021 at 12:49, Spinner72 said:

In that sense, a carefully structured UBI would certainly be a better system, so long as it still offers an incentive to work.

I like to think Tony Benn was correct in his belief that most people genuinely want to do meaningful work. I don't think a UBI would change that, but it would change the nonsense folk are prepared to put up with for hardly any money. It'll mean we'd have to start treating nurses, teachers and service staff a lot better for starters.

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  • 2 months later...

I have little sympathy for the haulage industry not being able to get enough drivers.  Like many other industries they see training as someone else's problem and therefore cost.  I have goods vehicle licence, but no CPC, which I believe that I need, and I was told would cost me about £2,000 to get.  I wrote to every employer who had trucks a good few years ago about work, even offering to come in at short notice if a driver didn't turn up.  I got one response from Streamline, who said they had nothing going at the time, but would keep my name on file.  I never had a spare £2k to get the CPC qualification on the offchance that I might get work, so I didn't bother.  I never heard from Streamline afterwards, and I ended up with an muckle sphincter job elsewhere.

Hospitality is a dead end occupation with plenty of exploitation available in most cases, so it's hardly surprising that the locals vote with their feet.  By the laws of supply and demand, these industries, short of workers, need to offer better terms and conditions.  Until they do they will battle to recruit and retain staff.  The bosses aren't willing to have a little less so that their staff can have a little more though in my experience.  I saw this when I went for an interview with a car hire firm.  I totted up my income from the job versus my outgoings, I would have needed a car to do the job, and I would have been left with about £20 a week.  I couldn't afford to work for them.  They suddenly improved their offer, but I saw it as underhand that they hadn't offered that in the first place, so declined their "generous" offer.

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