If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
I didn't say it was, I said most min wage people cant afford to it often
It is quite noticeable, in London, that going to the pub has stopped being a casual meeting up thing for the young. Too expensive.
When I was that age, we lived in the pub - 6 days a week, often.
I didn't say it was, I said most min wage people cant afford to it often
A lot of average paid people can't afford it either. A pint is now often £6-£8, that's not affordable on a regular basis.
Yep - tonight a pint of beer and a glass of wine will be £15 a round... Easily affordable for me but then my income is rather more and expenditure rather less than most people.
But £15 is probably 2 hours on minimum wage after tax...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
Yes, this is a problem at my work too.
We cannot recruit competent, reliable receptionists and clinic clerks at the AFC2 grade, or retain the few we have. Could we if they were paid more? Perhaps, but when they put in for a pay rise last year they were told to piss off by the government.
The resultant gaps in clinics reduce my productivity considerably.
I didn't say it was, I said most min wage people cant afford to it often
A lot of average paid people can't afford it either. A pint is now often £6-£8, that's not affordable on a regular basis.
I go out to the pub with my father one day a week, even though a pint of doom bar is only £4.30 where we go it soon adds up when you add in a glass of wine for his gf per round and a couple of cheap pub lunches....easily £40 almost 10% of weekly pay for a min wage worker post tax
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
I wonder how much of the decrease in waiting staff is made up by the increase in food delivery drivers
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Since COVID large chunks of the local council are unreachable on the phone or email. Strangely, there are few enthusiasts for this state of affairs.
WFH doesn’t work if all you do is give people a shit laptop and tell them piss off home.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
And energy costs which are still 3 times what they were in 2021...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Why would anyone want to wait tables? To earn some money while improving their English so that they can go home and get a well paid job and build a life.
We had - we have - a brilliant selling point. The English language. It's one that enabled eating out, going out generally, to become cheaper and more available to many more people. It created businesses, it helped local economies, it generated business rates. There were no real losers. We were mad to so casually throw it away. As I say, this is not about Brexit per se, it's about the Brexit that was chosen.
In some countries being a waiter/waitress is considered a career. Older staff are common in most of Europe for example. I expect the same goes in the kitchens.
Perhaps they have better terms and conditions, or a stake in the business rather than being treated as dispensible ZHC serfs.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Why would anyone want to wait tables? To earn some money while improving their English so that they can go home and get a well paid job and build a life.
We had - we have - a brilliant selling point. The English language. It's one that enabled eating out, going out generally, to become cheaper and more available to many more people. It created businesses, it helped local economies, it generated business rates. There were no real losers. We were mad to so casually throw it away. As I say, this is not about Brexit per se, it's about the Brexit that was chosen.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Why would anyone want to wait tables? To earn some money while improving their English so that they can go home and get a well paid job and build a life.
We had - we have - a brilliant selling point. The English language. It's one that enabled eating out, going out generally, to become cheaper and more available to many more people. It created businesses, it helped local economies, it generated business rates. There were no real losers. We were mad to so casually throw it away. As I say, this is not about Brexit per se, it's about the Brexit that was chosen.
In some countries being a waiter/waitress is considered a career. Older staff are common in most of Europe for example. I expect the same goes in the kitchens.
Perhaps they have better terms and conditions, or a stake in the business rather than being treated as dispensible ZHC serfs.
From taking to people - lifestyle on the wages is the factor.
A tenant of my wife’s was a Polish lady. Worked as a waitress. Moved to Spain, because she could afford a much bigger flat and have more money left over, there.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
The number of people has an impact on the cost of housing however. Same with public services. This is why I support a minimum salary....someone coming over for a few years to work a bar for min wage doesn't add much to revenue to the exchequor. About 2800 a year. Yes they cost less than oldies on public services but its not they cost nothing and 2800 a year can be subsumed quite quickly by a visit to a&e for a sports injury, going to the doctor a couple of times, a theft that needs investigating etc.
Proponents of young immigration like to portray their cost to the public purse as next to nothing and yes it is compared to a 70 year old. But if they aren't paying much in tax in the first place they don't need to need much to make them a net drain on services
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
And I suspect that we're in the corner of the graph any increases in income rapidly get turned into increases in rent.
If you want to help people starting out in life, sort that out.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Well you are only "rich" on that salary in Northern England. In London its a very average salary.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
And I suspect that we're in the corner of the graph any increases in income rapidly get turned into increases in rent.
If you want to help people starting out in life, sort that out.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Why would anyone want to wait tables? To earn some money while improving their English so that they can go home and get a well paid job and build a life.
We had - we have - a brilliant selling point. The English language. It's one that enabled eating out, going out generally, to become cheaper and more available to many more people. It created businesses, it helped local economies, it generated business rates. There were no real losers. We were mad to so casually throw it away. As I say, this is not about Brexit per se, it's about the Brexit that was chosen.
In some countries being a waiter/waitress is considered a career. Older staff are common in most of Europe for example. I expect the same goes in the kitchens.
Perhaps they have better terms and conditions, or a stake in the business rather than being treated as dispensible ZHC serfs.
There was some chat about it during the week, wasn't there? I think the conclusion was that bistronomics worked because of a combination of family businesses and low property prices.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
This will change bigly in 20 years or less as the boomers pass on and big inheritances are less likely from the following generations. For now thought the secret of success in modern britain is to have rich parents.
I didn't say it was, I said most min wage people cant afford to it often
A lot of average paid people can't afford it either. A pint is now often £6-£8, that's not affordable on a regular basis.
Yep - tonight a pint of beer and a glass of wine will be £15 a round... Easily affordable for me but then my income is rather more and expenditure rather less than most people.
But £15 is probably 2 hours on minimum wage after tax...
Your general point is entirely fair, but two hours on minimum wage after tax won't be very much less than two hours minimum wage before tax (£22.88 for over 21 - £11.44 per hour) simply because someone earning minimum wage won't be massively over the threshold so won't pay basic rate on very much of their income. It'll vary of course, but you'd be seeing more like £20 than £15 for two hours.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
Numbers of immigrants is not the problem though.
What is the problem is infrastructure has to expand to meet the increase in population. Now which is more likely to prop that up
1,000,000 coming here to be waiters on min wage about 3 billion a year in tax and national insurance 1,000,000 coming here to do jobs paid 37k upwards about 7 billion a year in tax and national insurance
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Well you are only "rich" on that salary in Northern England. In London its a very average salary.
There are many, many people not earning that in London
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
However if house peices crashed to make them affordable the banks would likely have massive losses on their balance sheets. By the way check out hotel prices in Japan its now more affordable than the uk quite some turnaround.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
Numbers of immigrants is not the problem though.
What is the problem is infrastructure has to expand to meet the increase in population. Now which is more likely to prop that up
1,000,000 coming here to be waiters on min wage about 3 billion a year in tax and national insurance 1,000,000 coming here to do jobs paid 37k upwards about 7 billion a year in tax and national insurance
I think a majority of recent immigrants are not on £37k+.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Well you are only "rich" on that salary in Northern England. In London its a very average salary.
There are many, many people not earning that in London
Indeed but they dont tend to live in Islington or Hampstead.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Well you are only "rich" on that salary in Northern England. In London its a very average salary.
There are many, many people not earning that in London
Got to say the idea that most people being on 170% of the UK median wage in London doesn't seem right - just checked the figures and the median is now £34,900...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
Numbers of immigrants is not the problem though.
What is the problem is infrastructure has to expand to meet the increase in population. Now which is more likely to prop that up
1,000,000 coming here to be waiters on min wage about 3 billion a year in tax and national insurance 1,000,000 coming here to do jobs paid 37k upwards about 7 billion a year in tax and national insurance
I think a majority of recent immigrants are not on £37k+.
But it is the system we are meant to be moving towards
Don't forget to buy the souvenir pint glass in the gift shop on your way out...
Pint ?
Oh, how quaint...
" ‘‘E could 'a drawed me off a pint,' grumbled the old man as he settled down behind a glass. ‘A 'alf litre ain't enough. It don't satisfy. And a 'ole litre's too much. It starts my bladder running. Let alone the price.'
‘You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,' said Winston tentatively.
The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as though it were in the bar-room that he expected the changes to have occurred.
‘The beer was better,' he said finally. ‘And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer — wallop we used to call it — was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.'"
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
However if house peices crashed to make them affordable the banks would likely have massive losses on their balance sheets. By the way check out hotel prices in Japan its now more affordable than the uk quite some turnaround.
Sorry - nope, very few houses actually have mortgages and even fewer will have mortgages where a 10% reduction in value would result in things being below water...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
Imagine you are on £60,000 a year. Then look at what that gets you in London. Then look at the mortgage payments at 95% mortgage.
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Well you are only "rich" on that salary in Northern England. In London its a very average salary.
There are many, many people not earning that in London
Indeed but they dont tend to live in Islington or Hampstead.
I didn't say it was, I said most min wage people cant afford to it often
A lot of average paid people can't afford it either. A pint is now often £6-£8, that's not affordable on a regular basis.
I go out to the pub with my father one day a week, even though a pint of doom bar is only £4.30 where we go it soon adds up when you add in a glass of wine for his gf per round and a couple of cheap pub lunches....easily £40 almost 10% of weekly pay for a min wage worker post tax
We went out to the toon yesterday. Bus there, cab back. 25 quid. A couple of rounds In A-x-I-s, 25 quid, then a late brunch and a couple of drinks for 60 quid.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
The prevention of low paid workers and tradesmen undercutting the family breadwinner seems to be going quite well I think. The increase in immigration appears to be students, skilled workers and refugees from Hong Kong and Ukraine .
Probably not what a lot of Leave voters were desperate for, but puts paid to the lie that Boris was about to run the country as a frothing, right wing, foreigner hating racist. It shows we can choose lots of immigration or not much at all.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
And energy costs which are still 3 times what they were in 2021...
Are they? Can you elucidate? I make it about 50% higher. Inflation 2021 to 2024 knocks 19% off that.
The lowest OFGEM price cap level in 2021 was £1042 for their 'standard' user, and it is currently £1690, using "Typical Domestic User paying via DD" (annual use 2700 kWh electric, 11500 kWh gas).
On £35K in London you'd find it pretty difficult to have any fun at all.
£60-70K you'd live fairly comfortably but you'd have to be quite careful with how you manage your money.
£80K+ you can start to splash out.
That's my experience of living in SW London
Very much depends on how much mortgage rent you have. £35k in London just doable with no mortgage/rent.
Do you mean without rent?
If you rent on £35K a year, nowadays you'll be paying at least £1000 a month + bills, probably more like £1200+ so I agree it's "doable" but it's not fun.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
However if house peices crashed to make them affordable the banks would likely have massive losses on their balance sheets. By the way check out hotel prices in Japan its now more affordable than the uk quite some turnaround.
Sorry - nope, very few houses actually have mortgages and even fewer will have mortgages where a 10% reduction in value would result in things being below water...
If prices reduced by 5% per year in money terms, for 8-10 years, almost no-one with a repayment mortgage would be underwater, although deposit requirements might rise in the process.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
The prevention of low paid workers and tradesmen undercutting the family breadwinner seems to be going quite well I think. The increase in immigration appears to be students, skilled workers and refugees from Hong Kong and Ukraine .
Probably not what a lot of Leave voters were desperate for, but puts paid to the lie that Boris was about to run the country as a frothing, right wing, foreigner hating racist. It shows we can choose lots of immigration or not much at all.
Lots of low paid workers in the immigration figures, most notably those working in the care sector.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
The prevention of low paid workers and tradesmen undercutting the family breadwinner seems to be going quite well I think. The increase in immigration appears to be students, skilled workers and refugees from Hong Kong and Ukraine .
Probably not what a lot of Leave voters were desperate for, but puts paid to the lie that Boris was about to run the country as a frothing, right wing, foreigner hating racist. It shows we can choose lots of immigration or not much at all.
Lots of low paid workers in the immigration figures, most notably those working in the care sector.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
And energy costs which are still 3 times what they were in 2021...
Are they? Can you elucidate? I make it about 50% higher. Inflation 2021 to 2024 knocks 19% off that.
The lowest OFGEM price cap level in 2021 was £1042 for their 'standard' user, and it is currently £1690, using "Typical Domestic User paying via DD" (annual use 2700 kWh electric, 11500 kWh gas).
I wasn't talking about domestic prices - I was talking about commercial prices and it's a story you see continually when restaurants are closing - fuel prices are way higher and the old third/third/third calculations aren't working at the moment.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
For the food and drink service industry, it’s the squeeze between the price of booze at home, wages, property prices and taxation.
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
And energy costs which are still 3 times what they were in 2021...
Are they? Can you elucidate? I make it about 50% higher. Inflation 2021 to 2024 knocks 19% off that.
The lowest OFGEM price cap level in 2021 was £1042 for their 'standard' user, and it is currently £1690, using "Typical Domestic User paying via DD" (annual use 2700 kWh electric, 11500 kWh gas).
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Hmmm given we keep getting told that public services both national and local are declining I am not sure how you sell a 20% decline in productivity from them for the same monetary input to voters who finance them
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Hmmm given we keep getting told that public services both national and local are declining I am not sure how you sell a 20% decline in productivity from them for the same monetary input to voters who finance them
There wasn't a decline in productivity - compressed hours have the magic impact of people often being more efficient because the work hasn't been reduced you just have less time to do it so you are more efficient..
And even if there was a slight fall in productivity best to have 90-95% of the work done rather than 0% (which is what gets done if you don't have any staff).
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Hmmm given we keep getting told that public services both national and local are declining I am not sure how you sell a 20% decline in productivity from them for the same monetary input to voters who finance them
Trials showed there was no decline in productivity.
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
And how’s that going in practice? It’s just that the UK has record immigration since Brexit…
The prevention of low paid workers and tradesmen undercutting the family breadwinner seems to be going quite well I think. The increase in immigration appears to be students, skilled workers and refugees from Hong Kong and Ukraine .
Probably not what a lot of Leave voters were desperate for, but puts paid to the lie that Boris was about to run the country as a frothing, right wing, foreigner hating racist. It shows we can choose lots of immigration or not much at all.
Lots of low paid workers in the immigration figures, most notably those working in the care sector.
Good to hear, there’s an horrific staff shortage in the care sector, and it’s contributing to NHS delays costing the country a fortune. We should open a recuitment centre in Manila and charter one plane a day. Get them local accommodation, even if this means temporary facilities in the leafier areas of Southern England.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Are you always this obnoxious.
Take it you are newish here and not a long term lurker posting for the first time...
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
Young people would come to the UK from all over the EU for a year or two to work in pubs, bars, restaurants etc. They'd improve their English and earn some cash, then go home to start their adult lives. They left a very low footprint because they were young, healthy and did not come with families. As a result, everybody won - the young people, the hospitality industry, customers and local economies. It's a real shame we have thrown that away. This is not a consequence of Brexit. It is a consequence of the Brexit that was chosen. There is a very big difference.
The beauty of leaving is we can now, or in the future, offer those young people the chance to do that, whilst preventing the mass immigration of low paid workers and tradesmen that left a deep footprint, put breadwinners out of work, or pressure on their wages & job security, whose kids took up school places etc
If that had been an option while we were a member I doubt Leave would have won
If the restaurants and pubs and bars are gone, there are no jobs to offer. That's the problem.
Pubs have been closing down for years now, I don’t think it’s because they can’t get the staff. It’s a shame if restaurants are closing because of the reason you give, but the situation can be remedied
Unfortunately, Blair’s decision to open the floodgates to the A8 and the refusal by him, then Cameron, to listen to the people affected meant we had to bludgeon our way out. Finesse was not an option, I wish it had been
The issue isn't the number of people it's the cost of housing and from the that cost of everything alongside the amount of disposable income people have...
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
There are many people spending far more than 40%…
It’s madness.
I did original think of posting a higher figure but I thought people would argue against it - but I do know people who are paying 60+% in rent but are just about managing because mum and dad are helping. Many people of cause don't have the option so didn't take the London only graduate job because they couldn't afford it.
This will change bigly in 20 years or less as the boomers pass on and big inheritances are less likely from the following generations. For now thought the secret of success in modern britain is to have rich parents.
That don't go into care or live to a hundred and ten
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Are you always this obnoxious.
He is hereford born and bred
No, he was born in Teignmouth. He likes to pretend he's Cornish hard granite, with a surface of Hereford's finest.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Are you always this obnoxious.
I do my best, it's all you can do, really, isn't it?
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Are you always this obnoxious.
Yes, he is.
Incidentally, if a plane crashes on the Ukraine/Republic of China border, which side do you bury the survivors?
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..
Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic - to the extent that most councils have bans on it beyond contract staff...
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..
Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Lets see who benefits from keeping waiters on min wage
People who go to restaurants because prices are lower People who run restaurants because overheads are lower
People who don't benefit....waiters who end up on min wage and probably can't afford to eat often if at all at those restaurants
ie It benefits the middle classes and screw the lower paid.
As a not I am not far from sidmouth just up the coast a little at don't see all these closing restaurants, cafes and pubs in either budleigh salterton or exmouth due to staff shortages. What I do see is closures of places because they no longer get enough throughput of customers because a lot of people that could afford to goto bars 3 to 4 times a week now can't.
It's not just middle class people that eat out and go to pubs.
it should be tho. In fact it should only be artistic uppermiddle class people like me. I don't want to mix with retired businessmen or accountants, all the bankers and IT nerds, and professional water-hoarders and postwomen, you're all so BORING
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
Are you always this obnoxious.
Take it you are newish here and not a long term lurker posting for the first time...
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
Can’t you afford a decent LLM? Should we do a whip round?
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Hmmm given we keep getting told that public services both national and local are declining I am not sure how you sell a 20% decline in productivity from them for the same monetary input to voters who finance them
Trials showed there was no decline in productivity.
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
Can’t you afford a decent LLM? Should we do a whip round?
🚨personal news🚨I’ll be leaving the BBC at the end of May. Newsnight in its current format will end then, so most posts will go. I decided not to apply for other BBC jobs. Working there for 35 yrs has been life defining: an eyewitness to history collaborating with such brilliant colleagues. But it’s time for a change
Why should I pay a licence fee to see the same endless reality and light entertainment that is available on the other 99 freeview channels? BBC needs to do what is different.
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
So basically you don't like it and can't prove it isn't good. I remember when somebody got wound up the other day when I used anecdotal evidence to prove a point.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..
Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Especially when six nights a week working unsocial hours waiting tables, often with unpredictable actual hours worked as staff get sent home on quiet nights, can barely scrape a room in one of those sh1tty HMOs an hour’s commute away by public transport.
Wages in service industries will simply have to go up. Chefs, in particular, are just about the lowest paid trade, and have been quitting in droves since the pandemic.
Yup. A pub near me - Landlord complains because when he rings people up about doing shift the next day, they aren’t interested.
Chap in the pub next door to his (literally) plans his shifts months in advance (shock horror!). Does a laundry bag for the staff and provides polo shirts and aprons, so they can go home not smelling like a failed student pub crawl… plus pays a bit more.
Strangely he has staff.
Well it sounds like there will be pretty much unlimited temp work for the students this summer, as I used to do a quarter-century ago(!). A variety of crappy temp catering and retail work, plus some fun events like Ascot and Henley, but could get 90 hours a week in most weeks, which is somewhat easier when you’re 20 than when you’re 45!
Today’s students do want to work in the summer, rather than party and take out more loans that will affect them for decades - don’t they?
They certainly do. But I hope employers this year have a more realistic perspective than last year. My two, who were happy to do anything, struggled to find any work at all, as it seemed employers were still expecting to be able to take on experienced staff at minimum wage in London, and weren't prepared to compromise.
Yes - he's by far the worst part of this site. But hopefully he will have another flounce soon and we'll have some peace.
Welcome BTW.
Talking of flouncing arent we due your next one anytime soon?
I didn't flounce though. I used a bad word some time ago (that I should have just starred out - I was not advocating the word and I wasn't using it as an insult, it was basically paraphrasing) and was banned for it. You're clearly very wound up again. Take a chill pill brother
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Hmmm given we keep getting told that public services both national and local are declining I am not sure how you sell a 20% decline in productivity from them for the same monetary input to voters who finance them
Trials showed there was no decline in productivity.
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
But there are simple measurements you can use to check if it's successful or not.
Customer service cases handled. Numbers of Complaint Number of planning applications handled within 8 weeks (core government target that council finance depends on).
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
So basically you don't like it and can't prove it isn't good. I remember when somebody got wound up the other day when I used anecdotal evidence to prove a point.
I’ve literally provided links and sources in that post 😂😂😂😂
Oh, and they could be racist and widen social inequality too 👍
Yes - he's by far the worst part of this site. But hopefully he will have another flounce soon and we'll have some peace.
Welcome BTW.
Talking of flouncing arent we due your next one anytime soon?
I didn't flounce though. I used a bad word some time ago (that I should have just starred out - I was not advocating the word and I wasn't using it as an insult, it was basically paraphrasing) and was banned for it. You're clearly very wound up again. Take a chill pill brother
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
Especially when six nights a week working unsocial hours waiting tables, often with unpredictable actual hours worked as staff get sent home on quiet nights, can barely scrape a room in one of those sh1tty HMOs an hour’s commute away by public transport.
Wages in service industries will simply have to go up. Chefs, in particular, are just about the lowest paid trade, and have been quitting in droves since the pandemic.
Yup. A pub near me - Landlord complains because when he rings people up about doing shift the next day, they aren’t interested.
Chap in the pub next door to his (literally) plans his shifts months in advance (shock horror!). Does a laundry bag for the staff and provides polo shirts and aprons, so they can go home not smelling like a failed student pub crawl… plus pays a bit more.
Strangely he has staff.
Well it sounds like there will be pretty much unlimited temp work for the students this summer, as I used to do a quarter-century ago(!). A variety of crappy temp catering and retail work, plus some fun events like Ascot and Henley, but could get 90 hours a week in most weeks, which is somewhat easier when you’re 20 than when you’re 45!
Today’s students do want to work in the summer, rather than party and take out more loans that will affect them for decades - don’t they?
They certainly do. But I hope employers this year have a more realistic perspective than last year. My two, who were happy to do anything, struggled to find any work at all, as it seemed employers were still expecting to be able to take on experienced staff at minimum wage in London, and weren't prepared to compromise.
I’ve encountered employees who believe that an infinite supply of workers who will happily take minimum wage plus one groat, on any terms and conditions is a human right.
For the employers, that is.
Several seem to think that the Labour government will create the supply so they don’t have to deal with the current “difficult” lot.
But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
1. Leon's wit and insights balance out the occasional grandiosity of PB 2. Leon's work is in the tradition of metaphysical PB commentary, after St. Augustine and Baudelaire. 3. Leon's self-examination encourages readers to reflect on their own behaviors. 4. Leon's passions and obsessions are not just external influences, but also parts of his own psyche. 5. Leon suggests embracing the flux of time and memory, finding wisdom and beauty in love, ruin, betting, and politics.
If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit
It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.
So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause
Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.
But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.
I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.
(Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.
The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.
We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
Yes I suppose so.
But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.
It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.
If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?
No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.
What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.
The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.
Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.
Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.
😂😂😂😂
Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
It's local Government.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..
Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
You don't think agencies will do application forms?
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
So basically you don't like it and can't prove it isn't good. I remember when somebody got wound up the other day when I used anecdotal evidence to prove a point.
I’ve literally provided links and sources in that post 😂😂😂😂
Oh, and they could be racist and widen social inequality too 👍
Comments
When I was that age, we lived in the pub - 6 days a week, often.
But £15 is probably 2 hours on minimum wage after tax...
They can’t charge more because they are already pushing customers away with higher prices.
We cannot recruit competent, reliable receptionists and clinic clerks at the AFC2 grade, or retain the few we have. Could we if they were paid more? Perhaps, but when they put in for a pay rise last year they were told to piss off by the government.
The resultant gaps in clinics reduce my productivity considerably.
If housing was affordable then we wouldn't have any issue finding staff and equally you would have more customers because they wouldn't be spending 40%+ of their post tax income on rent...
WFH doesn’t work if all you do is give people a shit laptop and tell them piss off home.
It’s madness.
Perhaps they have better terms and conditions, or a stake in the business rather than being treated as dispensible ZHC serfs.
A tenant of my wife’s was a Polish lady. Worked as a waitress. Moved to Spain, because she could afford a much bigger flat and have more money left over, there.
Proponents of young immigration like to portray their cost to the public purse as next to nothing and yes it is compared to a 70 year old. But if they aren't paying much in tax in the first place they don't need to need much to make them a net drain on services
Then remember that £60k means you are rich.
Ha, looks like they won't they might even win it.
If you want to help people starting out in life, sort that out.
What is the problem is infrastructure has to expand to meet the increase in population. Now which is more likely to prop that up
1,000,000 coming here to be waiters on min wage about 3 billion a year in tax and national insurance
1,000,000 coming here to do jobs paid 37k upwards about 7 billion a year in tax and national insurance
Oh, how quaint...
ISRAEL SAID TO STRIKE BACK ON IRAN IN NEXT 24/48 HOURS
https://x.com/DeItaone/status/1779557811170496539
‘You must have seen great changes since you were a young man,' said Winston tentatively.
The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents, as though it were in the bar-room that he expected the changes to have occurred.
‘The beer was better,' he said finally. ‘And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer — wallop we used to call it — was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course.'"
Superb goal.
£60-70K you'd live fairly comfortably but you'd have to be quite careful with how you manage your money.
£80K+ you can start to splash out.
That's my experience of living in SW London
It’s really not cheap at all these days.
Ukraine .
Probably not what a lot of Leave voters were desperate for, but puts paid to the lie that Boris was about to run the country as a frothing, right wing, foreigner hating racist. It shows we can choose lots of immigration or not much at all.
The lowest OFGEM price cap level in 2021 was £1042 for their 'standard' user, and it is currently £1690, using "Typical Domestic User paying via DD" (annual use 2700 kWh electric, 11500 kWh gas).
The chart is up to Jan 2024.
https://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/price-cap/
If you rent on £35K a year, nowadays you'll be paying at least £1000 a month + bills, probably more like £1200+ so I agree it's "doable" but it's not fun.
Now that the PL is pretty much over we might as well.
Only witty and debonair arty rich clever people like me should be allowed to go restaurants and glamorous bars.The rest of you could have some kind of cafeteria system when you eat your "evening meals", hidden away on the outskirts of town, as we do with abbatoirs and sewage works
😂😂😂😂
Pep Guardiola has been rushed to hospital.
Smiled so much his face fell in half.
And even if there was a slight fall in productivity best to have 90-95% of the work done rather than 0% (which is what gets done if you don't have any staff).
Welcome BTW.
Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
But in reality he's a Devon cream tea.
May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
Incidentally, if a plane crashes on the Ukraine/Republic of China border, which side do you bury the survivors?
Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic - to the extent that most councils have bans on it beyond contract staff...
Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230319-four-day-workweek-trial-the-firms-where-it-didnt-work
The trials being judged by people advocating the policy. Marking their own homework and relying on people self certifying this.
From the Washington Post last month. Must be true of the respondents felt it to be the case.
“ Studies have shown that workers are either equally or more productive during a four-day workweek — one study found that worker productivity rose, with 55 percent saying their ability at work increased after companies adopted this new schedule”
The Chief Executive of S Cambridgeshire Council did a PHD on it. Would be stunned if she came out against it or said it didn’t work.
Mark Urban
@MarkUrban01
🚨personal news🚨I’ll be leaving the BBC at the end of May. Newsnight in its current format will end then, so most posts will go. I decided not to apply for other BBC jobs. Working there for 35 yrs has been life defining: an eyewitness to history collaborating with such brilliant colleagues. But it’s time for a change
https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1779442191171047600
Why should I pay a licence fee to see the same endless reality and light entertainment that is available on the other 99 freeview channels? BBC needs to do what is different.
Customer service cases handled.
Numbers of Complaint
Number of planning applications handled within 8 weeks (core government target that council finance depends on).
It went well beyond marking their own homework.
Oh, and they could be racist and widen social inequality too 👍
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1868646/four-day-week-widen-racial-gender-inequalities
For the employers, that is.
Several seem to think that the Labour government will create the supply so they don’t have to deal with the current “difficult” lot.
1. Leon's wit and insights balance out the occasional grandiosity of PB
2. Leon's work is in the tradition of metaphysical PB commentary, after St. Augustine and Baudelaire.
3. Leon's self-examination encourages readers to reflect on their own behaviors.
4. Leon's passions and obsessions are not just external influences, but also parts of his own psyche.
5. Leon suggests embracing the flux of time and memory, finding wisdom and beauty in love, ruin, betting, and politics.