That when you get a job, you get more job offers than when you were unemployed.
Literally minutes after I took the job at Argos, I had a call from an agency about working in a warehouse.
Today I had a call about working in a callcentre, in a job more suited to my technical skills.
The problem in both cases though is the fact that they want staff with immediate effect.
For instance, the one today couldn't grasp the fact that I wasn't going to drop a job I've already (albeit part-time) on the speculative assumption I may get their full-time job after interview.
I'd love to take the job, but after 18 months of job-hunting I'm not going to give this part-time one up without a guarantee that the new job is mine obviously.
Such is the state of the current job market that employers and agencies have a tranche of skilled unemployed people they can phone and demand such immediate action. They have so many people on the books currently unemployed that they can be so uncompromising.
I see that the unemployment figures went up again this week. The newspapers are spinning it as a success, because the figure wasn't as high as expected, so the line is unemployment is levelling out.
However, youth unemployment is at an all-time high, despite Gordon Brown's promise to reduce it. Just like child poverty, is there any Labour target that they have succeeded in attaining?
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2 hours ago
Auch Del what a shame. Why don't you write a letter to the job you fancied saying surely they want an honourable employee and that's what you are by sticking to your contract with Argos.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't know of any target - or perhaps I'm wrong. They certainly seem to be filling the coffers with fixed penalty notices by the looks of it.
And beneath the headline figures on unemployment is the fact that in the period, 80,000 full time jobs were lost, while 86,000 part time jobs were created.
ReplyDeleteSR: I've a feeling they'll start to squeeze us for money in as many ways as possible. VAT is already supposed to go up to 20 percent, I'm sure Income Tax and N.I. will rise, global warming will provide a nice little earner to extrot more tax out of us and probably increase tax on gas and electricity. There will be no avenue left unexplored by which they will strip us of our assets so WE pay back the billions lent to the banks.
ReplyDeleteIM: Yes, its a trend thats been going on for more than a decade: the transition from well-paid, permanent full-time jobs, to minimum-wage, part-time or temporary jobs. Its just a trend that has accelerated in the past year or so as it suits employers with an uncertain future ahead to employ people on a temp or part-time basis. It saves them so much of the red tape introduced by the Labour government.
It's not just a trend for emplyers to exploit, the use of part time and short contract jobs, though I'm sure some do.
ReplyDeleteIt's more about the loss of industries and genuinely productive private sector business, and the replacement by call centres and the like.
Our economy over the last decade has been ruined.
I agree that our industry has been decimated by successive governments. But Labour have done nothing to help, in fact they've accelerated things by increasing the burden of red tape and expense on employers. So now you get the huge expansion of temp or part-time work, as employers avoid the new rules brought in by Labour. The minimum wage, rather than raise wages from bad employers, has given all employers a benchmark to reduce pay down to.
ReplyDeleteI know where you're coming from on the replacement of manufacturing industry with our service-based ecomony. I blogged about it years ago and no-one listened, because we were in a boom. A bubble that people don't realise hasn't yet burst. Labour are still propping the whole thing up on staggering amounts of debt in order to buy the next election or failing that, when the whole thing comes to and end and we all have to wear sackcloth and eat gruel for the next couple of decades to pay it all back, Labour can blame it all on the Conservatives.
Another thing I'd add on call-centres is the rise of the public sector funded call centre. Specifically placed in northern Labour-voting areas in order to artificially boost the economy in those areas and thereby increase the Labour vote.
ReplyDeleteAnd to create a backlash against the Tories when they eventually start to rein in profligate Labour public spending.
Everything Labour has done and ever will do all boils down to manipulating society to increase their vote at election time. Its not about the poor, needy or sick, its about keeping a place at the trough for as long as possible. It sickens me that politics has be debased so fundamentally.