Gardening - what on earth is happening in our country

[AndrewDod]

One tenant of mine has an obligation to keep the garden nice and wants a nice garden. He knows he does not have time, so wants to employ someone to help a half day a week. he asked if I can recommend someone.

After three weeks of trying (including some big companies) and even looking for gardeners without any great academic experience of plants - I came up with a complete zero.
Nobody has slots. All say they cannot get employees.

So while our young people stay at home on the dole, getting £650 handouts from Boris, and whining about their lot (there is some justification, but not a whole lot given an honest historical view), they don't want to get off their bums to do anything at all for people who would be happy to pay a lot (like £25/hour), and the Bulgarians can pick the fruit too.

We are doomed.

[jpkeates]

Unemployment is nearly as low as it's possible to get.
There are more than 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK which is an increase of more than 100,000 on the previous quarter.

That won't even include your gardening job (or the tens of thousands of other jobs that are not officially counted).
So, there are more vacancies than unemployed people, which is something I don't think has ever happened before.

There are almost certainly fewer people sitting at home on the dole than at any point in our recent history (that point was just pre-covid and we're nearly back there) and if they are, it's more likely to be physical or geographical constraint than laziness that causes it.

So people can choose what they want to do, it's an employee's market for the first time I can ever remember.

We'll have to do what the Germans did and let some serious numbers of immigrants in.
I reckon we need a couple of million right now, and then about 500k per annum.

[JK0]

Same in Reading Andrew. I go over & cut my idle tenant's grass & hedges for him from time to time now.

[jpucng62]

Those who are unemployed now are mostly unemployable or work shy!

[AlexR]

I used a local social media website which has posts for local people who are offering services. I managed to get someone who is a returner to work and it suits us both. I admit I maybe have been lucky as I have heard from neighbours that it is difficult to find a gardener with a free slot.

[theartfullodger]

Gardening - what on earth is happening in our country

It's happened, Brex**it. Breaks my heart.

Appreciate others may have alternative views..

Best wishes to all.

[ash72]

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter want age they are, people are just choosy on what they do, even those eastern Europeans who have been here over +10 years don't want to take the jobs, only those who actually live in foreign countries which we have to charter a plane to get them here will do it.

[leasee123]

jpkeates,

Are you sure you are using the right statistics? Labour force participation rate is more reflective of what you are trying to assert. The unemployment rate does not include those who are unemployed and are not finding work - only those who are unemployed and actively looking. This understates the actual weakness in the labour market.

The participation rate, however, does include those who are not looking. This rate in the UK is merely back to what it was in 2016-2018.

Now you might see how absurd it is to keep importing immigrants to help our supposedly weak supply of labour. When the solution is to look into why the participation rate is telling quite a different story to the unemployment rate. Your idea just causes resource problems (in things like housing, teaching, health services, policing) and is completely mindless. At the very least we should look into the unemployment vs participation disparity and do what we can to encourage people to re-enter the labour force instead of turning this country into a purposeless benefits state.

[Parkers4]

my tenants appear to have left the garden for 8 years, my chocolate pot agent said they were looking after the garden & property (not!)

I've waited for 3 weeks for a gardening quote, without any so far, because they are so busy & they can't tackle the jungle until August

if I were younger I would easily pickup gardening work of this nature

[LandlordWannabe]

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter want age they are, people are just choosy on what they do, even those eastern Europeans who have been here over +10 years don't want to take the jobs, only those who actually live in foreign countries which we have to charter a plane to get them here will do it.

why wouldn’t they be ? When I was 18 I worked in a fish factory a gross job but the only one I could get. Minimum wage, hard work and come home stinking hating my life.

Same with fruit picking, farms in the middle of nowhere farmers wanting to pay crap wages then charge you for your accommodation, then wonder why no one wants to do it.

now I can literally quit my job today and have a new one within a week why would I pick a hard graft low pay job when I could do literally anything else for the same or better money ?

the worst jobs in society tend to pay the worst, that’s fine in a bad job market, when it turns and there’s more jobs than people wanting to do them it won’t go well for them, and god forbid they pay more.

It’s always harder to find people to do random jobs when there’s low unemployment.

Spent my 18-25 years massively struggling due to turning 18 in a financial crisis, if youngsters wanna go to college / uni / pick jobs that aren’t low paid / rubbish jobs good on them, I wish I had the opportunity when I was 18 to do the same

[jpkeates]

The unemployment rate does not include those who are unemployed and are not finding work - only those who are unemployed and actively looking.

It measures people who are economically active and who are not working.
Given the way that benefits policies work, if you are not economically active you are unlikely to be available for work in any meaningful way or timeframe.

You read that with the employment data and the number of vacancies to get a broadly meaningful picture.

Participation rate is a very interesting measure, but in the UK it's less meaningful, because social security data (and tax data) gives us a lot of insight and data about people who are not working.

Given the social security policies and data people who are not economically active are not likely to convert into employment, because they're:
In receipt of a pension.
In receipt of health related benefits.
Have a source of income they're living on in some way.

That last sector is very broad and complex.
But they don't receive much, if anything, in the way of benefits.
And they're unlikely to move back into "work".

There's a possible pool of workers available who are recently retired and active or not so recently retired, active and whose work hasn't changed such that they need retraining/requalifying.
Because pension income is much less than employment income, they might be incentivised to return to work.

The notion that there is a pot of people who could be economically active who are not but are living on benefits is odd.

[jpkeates]

now I can literally quit my job today and have a new one within a week why would I pick a hard graft low pay job when I could do literally anything else for the same or better money?

This is the essential point.

There are a huge number of companies slowly starting to realise this.
It's not that people don't want to work.
People will need to be paid more to do jobs that are worse than other available work.
That's quite new in the UK.

[LandlordWannabe]

When I worked in the fish factory I had a day literally being a conveyor belt because one broke, 8 hours of passing 2 frozen salmon a minute that had just had there head cut off probably 3 foot. Putting frozen pepperoni on pizzas with no gloves as they often ran out so blue hands for everyone.

Why on earth would I do that when I could easily get work in a shop, pub, warehouse, nightclub or even a labourer potentially leading to a career

wages will need to rise for undesirable job or people simply won’t do them.

people aren’t just desperate for any jobs anymore. If I was desperate I’d do a fish factory or fruit picking job for a couple of weeks until I found something better

[leasee123]

jpkeates,

My point was that the unemployment rate and vacancies data does not necessarily mean what you seem to suggest they mean in terms of tight labour and demand for labour, to the extent that we desperately need to import more labour to fill these vacancies.

I don't know how exactly the participation rates are compiled, whether or not they exclude those who can't work due to disability etc.

But an unemployment rate of a few % vs a non-participation rate of [100-75]% = 25% is a stark difference. Without quality data and how this data is compiled it is difficult to form enough conclusions to justify the importation of 1m or 500k "workers".

There is also a few issues with the vacancies data in that:

1) how much of this is actual jobs available? some might be duplications, some might be old jobs advertised still up and COVID reopening is also creating some distortions in the economic data such that vacancies might not truly reflect actual demand.

2) the jobs advertised likely aren't getting filled because the wages on offer are too low for workers (and so is keeping participation rates relatively low). this does not mean that employers can and should raise wages because there is a point when the business becomes unviable to run. That also does not mean importing workers would help fill these jobs because the jobs market is globally competitive (and so would also demand higher wages than advertised), we might not have workers willing to immigrate here given cost of living etc and there are resource constraints in importing people endlessly.

3) we still need some time for fiscal support and handouts/ stonk craze to fizzle out to see the real demand in the eocnomy. with CBs tightening and creating downward demand pressure, this will and is undoubtedly slowing down the economy with inflaiton also taking up much of the savings. This likely will impact demand for workers in a negative way and you will watch all those vancancies rapidly vanish.

[LandlordWannabe]

leasee123,

“This does not mean employers can or should raise wages” if you can’t attract staff on the wages you are paying you will end up without a business as well though as current staff will get sick of doing the work of 2 people for wages that aren’t attracting staff anymore.

We where always told “go get a trade if you want good wages there’s a que of people wanting your job” the que of people has gone now, surely wages should be rising ?