Not every posted open position will be filled. Some of those postings are the equivalent of lowball bids. They are opportunistic. Some are critical and must be filled at any price. The vacancies number does not capture the difference. I wonder how that shakes out in retrospect. Jobs that never got filled were not real vacancies just as "I'll give you five dollars for that car" does not make me a customer.
Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
121–130 of 385 posts
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#122My first thought was the pandemic and Brexit, but according to the article the employment numbers are back to where they were pre pandemic. So it's only Brexit? A lot of seasonal workers left before the pandemic and are not coming back?
For the Brexit-related component of worker shortage: It's a mix of workers leaving and choosing not to come back, many of them full-year not just seasonal, as well as workers that would like to come back temporarily to plug the gap, but aren't permitted even for skills-shortage roles.
Brexit and changing social attitudes have indeed put many off the UK, making other EU countries more attractive destinations. But there are still some people who would return temporarily for seasonal work if it was permitted.
This is not just the "low-paid, unskilled fruit picker" types of jobs, that are sometimes headlines. It is also skilled jobs that require considerable training and are paid well.
Example: Industry has been crying out to allow truck drivers from the EU to come to the UK, under the same "skills shortage" short-term visas that are allowed for some other sectors. A number of these involve driving routes on both sides of the UK-EU border, too, so it would make sense from that perspective as well. The government has said no, they must hire British workers for those roles. But they know it isn't possible in the short term, as it takes about 9 months of training. The government saying "just hire British workers today" when they know perfectly well that's not possible to comply with, is typical for this government in many areas, imho.
The shortage is obvious when shopping now. Common items you think of as in perpetual oversupply are currently out of stock, from normally well-managed supermarkets. For example, I can't buy any size pack of Coke Zero cans for delivery from the biggest supermarket Tesco. This is a popular item in the UK, and Tesco have a reputation for great logistics. Same for about a third of the other items on my regular items list. That's due to the truck driver shortage. Wages have increased tremendously (about 3x I think) for those roles this year. It's now a decent wage, more than a lot of people are earning, and they still can't be filled. So there's a genuine skills shortage in the UK, and people outside would do the jobs even temporarily while British workers were training, if it were permitted.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#123Good. Wages must be forced up. You can’t have a modern economy without a capitalized middle class. Real estate is so ludicrous we need quite a bit of inflation to make it reasonable again. The alternative would be a deflationary crash where real estate crashes and obliterates everyone’s home equity, but that is far more painful to virtually everyone.
What prevents landlords from simply soaking up the wage increases then?
Build more housing. A lot more housing. A good portion of it should be publicly owned.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love how all the elite arguments that immigration doesn't reduce wages (which the working class always thought were complete bullshit) were proved to be complete bullshit during the pandemic-related border closures. Of course, the discussion about what to do about that remains - open borders & keep wages low, or close borders & raise local wages, or close borders & keep wages low & invest in automation - but it's n…
There’s no opposition to gaslight, the vast majority of the population believes the myth of immigration reducing wages, while there’s no evidence of it being true (you are welcome to provide some). This vast majority is not the opposition, but the force that elected the past 3-4 conservative and euro-skeptic governments that gave us the “hostile environment for foreigners”. In the UK, EU nationals earn more than the…
The Tory governments of the last 11 years were not elected by anything close to "the vast majority"
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both more expensive and less available. But the funny thing is in Eastern Europe, where these workers come from and where they presumably are now, there too are record job vacancies and rising wages. So probably something to do with either the pandemic or overheating economy from the cheap money.
Much of Eastern Europe is also undergoing demographic collapse, with total fertility rates under 1.50, and unlike Western Europe they're not getting much in the way of immigrants. Even Syrian refugees etc simply pass through.
I was thinking it must be too soon to have a significant effect yet, but apparently I was wrong.
According to [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTPLQ647N], the working age population in Poland has declined by about 10% in 10 years.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if their wages grow in line with the increases.
Yes, "if". The problem is that companies don't move in lockstep with the broader economy, so it might take a year or two of food and goods increasing in price 12% before your company has managed to give you a 5% raise, which in turn requires them to raise the prices of their goods. And hopefully _their_ customers don't balk at the increased price because _they_ haven't yet been able to absorb their own set of wage in…
The context of this post is that companies are having difficulty hiring and are having to increase wages. Which is what is being hypothesised to lead to price increases. Which would suggest that wage increases would come first in this instance.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inflation will make any increase in wages meaningless. It will also further drive investment into housing to escape the free falling cash. The answer is no lockdowns, no bailouts, and no quantitative money printing to oblivion. Let the everything bubble pop and start over with sound first principles. We will get there, but not before politicians make it worse and delay the inevitable defaults.
The answer is to control the housing market and stop it being used an investment against inflation. Force people to invest in industry against inflation - not rent-seeking in housing, or cryptocurrency pyramid schemes. Only allow resident citizens to own the one property they live in, and have the government handle rentals like the old council housing / Folkhemmet homes.
Nah the answer is to simply build more.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
What prevents landlords from simply soaking up the wage increases then?
Build more housing. A lot more housing. A good portion of it should be publicly owned.
Existing owners won't let you do that, as it would depreciate their real estate portfolio.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#129The labour squeeze is placing upward pressure on wages, which is pumping more money into the economy which is in turn exacerbating the labour squeeze. Wages have been stagnant in the UK for too long. In the last decade or so certain sectors of the economy (hospitality, agriculture, nursing) have been too dependent on a vulnerable "serf class" of easily exploitable workers. That workers have got more money to spend is…
But if there aren't enough workers to give the pay increase to, then what? Reducing the pool of workers (Brexit) doesn't sold the wage problem. If a production line requires 30 people, and there are only 20... increasing their wages won't help. It won't encourage additional staff, as company B to Z is doing the same, and people aren't out of work because the wages are too low. Increasing minimum wage is the better wa…
Good question. You have to understand that "labour shortage" is code for "I cant find workers for the price that I would like".
Clearly there isn't (and can't be) and actual shortage of workers, there can only be increased competition between employers for available workers.
Its worth noting that in recent history, the times when democracies have been closest to actual labour shortages (post WWI and WWII) have in fact been correlated with economic booms.
Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record
#130There are 1.034 million vacancies and 3.277 million people without work that want it.
There isn't a shortage of labour. There is a shortage of decent pay and conditions.
Firms are going to have to get over their cheap labour obsession or close and leave the market to those firms that can.