tl;dr
Few things to say/relate regarding all of this -
Employers are a big part of the problem. Many big companies recruit agency workers on low wages because they can use/get shot of them as and when their profits require, without all the bothersome issues with trying to do that to a fulltime salaried worker.
Sure, it might cost the company £12 ph to the agency and £6 ph to the worker, but it's probably still cheaper than paying a salaried worker holiday pay, pension contributions (private and/or state), redundancy etc.
Two examples of these companies near me are Pepsico/Walkers, Caterpillar.
In the case of Caterpillar, my cousin worked there as a fulltime employee for two or three years. He was made redundant along with a lot of the FT staff. They were all replaced by a selection of temporary agency staff and government sponsored 'apprentices' from under 25's new deal type of schemes...
These guys were employed for 6 months until their apprenticeship was done, then let go. Then Caterpillar got another bunch of people from the same scheme and repeated the process. All the while being paid by the government to employ these people in the short term.
Meanwhile, my cousin is out of work with kids and a mortgage to pay for.
As for Walkers/Pepsico... I worked for them for a while as a temp. But due to not being able to earn enough
reliable hourly monies each week, I jacked it in to look for something that would guarantee me a wage - many times you'd be sent home because there would not be enough work on the 8 to 12 hour shifts, and if you're not in the warehouse working, you don't get paid. How are you supposed to 'work fulltime' when you might not get paid for a fulltime job?. I found this to be very difficult to get my head around, until I realised that neither pepsico/walkers nor its in-house agency, ranstad, gave a **** about me or my income.
Honestly, it's easy to see why these companies have 'in-house' agencies recruiting for them; on their own admission they have 'high staff turnover' well now I know why.
The last fulltime job I had made me and the rest of the CAD department redundant because they 'didn't make enough profit this year' because they'd bought out our next largest competitor who was making a huge loss and brought loads of debt with them, which my company assimilated... so yeah, of course they weren't going to make as much money this year as last... solution? make cuts in the workers! Great
![Roll Eyes :rolleyes: :rolleyes:](/styles/default/xenforo/vbSmilies/Normal/rolleyes.gif)
I guess they could always hire more staff next year? lol In reality they outsourced all the drawing office work.
Since then all I've had is crappy temporary jobs, either doing cad or more recently, warehousing, because the construction market has crashed in the recession. I'd like a fulltime job and contribute more to the economy with spending and all of that jazz, but the truth of the matter is most companies don't want fulltime workers because it's cheaper for them to employ temps from agencies.
Now I'm not sure of the veracity of what I'm going to recount next, I heard it on radio 4 some months back, so bear with me. Regarding immigrant workers - eastern european mainly. It was said that they get child benefit, whilst working here, for children living back in poland, for example. Also that if they are working here for six months or less, they get a rebate for all the tax/national insurance they have paid here when they go home and are free to repeat the process of working for six months, sending money back home, returning home etc etc. For some reason that does not sit well with me.
![Confused :confused: :confused:](/styles/default/xenforo/vbSmilies/Normal/confused.gif)
I know my english mate, who is married to a polish girl, gets FA from the polish state in terms of support. Things seem to be different when it's the other way around though.
I have several polish neighbours in my street; they are no better or worse than any of the other residents tbh. Though the couple a few doors down... he behaves like some gangsta dude, with his mates and his old bmw, drinking beer outside the house in the car [irony]it was clamped recently for having no road tax[/irony], slapping his woman about, generally being a bit of a ******.
Which ever way I look at it, the economy here is borked - spending, benefits, employment, labour market, loans, employer growth, all of it.
![Frown :( :(](/styles/default/xenforo/vbSmilies/Normal/frown.gif)