State of the Market

[JustKeepSwimming]

Seen a few instances where the staff collectively ignored requests to go back in to the office. Somehow it worked and everyone just carries on as normal.

Seen continentals go back home during covid and haven't returned despite official 'hybrid'. Others just flat out refused to come in with any regularity.

It's why I take the '2 days in the office' with a pinch of salt. That's just the party line from HR, it's normally down to individual managers.

[TheDude]

They are too ignorant for their own existence, 100k could be a good salary in the north. When childcare is 2k, rent 3k and food and most living another 1k, 5.5k net is slavery, excluding student loans, previous wifes etc.

You do realise that there is a correlation between salaries and cost of living.

Salaries for the Bay area or New York are very high but guess what...

It's seems like what you need to do to find peace is find a £150k a year gig in Wakefield or Bradford.

[PerfectStorm]

Find peace in...

Bradford

[oliverson]

You do realise that there is a correlation between salaries and cost of living.

Salaries for the Bay area or New York are very high but guess what...

It's seems like what you need to do to find peace is find a £150k a year gig in Wakefield or Bradford.

That's me right there, more or less!

[Bluenose]

Market report. burner has gone off five times in past two weeks.

I am calling the bottom of the contract market was a month ago and we are now in recovery.

Bench is heavy.

If this is correct then the bear market lasted for almost exactly one year.

[edison]

Market report. burner has gone off five times in past two weeks.

I am calling the bottom of the contract market was a month ago and we are now in recovery.

Bench is heavy.

If this is correct then the bear market lasted for almost exactly one year.

Seems premature to call the bottom of the contract market given that interest rates went up again and the Bank of England strongly indicated that they are likely to remain higher and for longer. We won't see the full impact of this until 2024 so I reckon things will get a bit worse first.

[Fraidycat]

I am calling the bottom of the contract market was a month ago and we are now in recovery.

The low point this year was probably in March after the banks collapsed and the large tech firms were still doing layoffs.

The Housing market has only recently started to correct. The FTSE 250 bottomed last year but is still in a bear market 10 months later.

It is the Bank of Englands fault for dragging things out for so long, it will have taken them 2 years to increase interest rates by the time they are done.

[krytonsheep]

Seems premature to call the bottom of the contract market given that interest rates went up again and the Bank of England strongly indicated that they are likely to remain higher and for longer. We won't see the full impact of this until 2024 so I reckon things will get a bit worse first.

What I've seen over the years is companies can tighten their belts based on market conditions / sentiment, but in order to make more money they have to spend more money and hire more people. That's why belt tightening doesn't normally last that long. E.g. maybe they reduce hiring for 6 months, get rid of what they consider to be dead wood, then start hiring again.

Personally think the contract market is always going to be ok, because businesses need good people who can jump on projects with very little notice. It can run very lean on the demand side though during periods like now.

[Protagoras]

Personally think the contract market is always going to be ok, because businesses need good people who can jump on projects with very little notice.

It may be my rose-tinted specs, but I think that the halcyon days of contracting were last century. Since then I've viewed contracting as being in managed decline, exacerbated by government policy. Indeed, I think there's an argument that the UK is now in managed decline.

Seems to me now that if a client wants people to jump on a project, they go to a 'consultancy' for resources. Contractors once had the advantage of being able to agree contracts in an hour, but for the prudent that's long gone.

Personally, I don't know any contractors under 55; indeed most of those I know still working are coasting towards retirement. The younger ones I did know 10 years ago have become permie, or left the UK (which is what I suggest to anyone who's young, skilled and mobile).

Last time I started a gig at short notice was 20 years ago in London (meet client on Friday, start Monday). Is this even a 'thing' these days?

[NotAllThere]

It is not about my entitlement you ignorant person nor about the English bulldog "get on with it" attitude.
It's about people acknowledging they are being made slaves by their own government and taking a stand for it.

Just reading an article in The Times about conspiracy theorist and came across this snippet.

[She] applies particular scrutiny to a free newspaper called The Light, which prints 100,000 copies a month, has established links to the far right and has directed readers to the work of Eustace Mullins, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier who died in 2010. In a glossary of “news speak” that appeared in a recent issue it described democracy as “an illusion that you have a say in your slavery” and defined the BBC as the “Ministry of Truth”.

So there we go. Now we know what the deluded idiot reads.