State of the Market

[PCTNN]

Legacy FS employees have some absolutely crazy contracts when it comes to redundancy. 1 month for every year worked, 20+ years service...

Ex-colleague from when I was a permie at a bank, he worked at this bank for 17 years. He was offered redundancy and took it, bringing home more than 100k. He got a job at another bank after 3 months (3 months by choice as he went on holiday for 2 months).

Same thing happened at a local authority where I was a junior permie at the start of my career. Big organisational restructure, they offered voluntary redundancy to all employees who had been there at least 2 years (I hadn't). The redundancy package agreed with the unions was 2.7 months of salary for every year of service. Ludicrous!

[dsc]

[...]My hope is that all this will happen gradually but I think the Covid years accelerated a lot of changes which need to pass through the system before things settle down a bit[...]

Don't forget that Covid brought a massive increase in employment, some companies decided to hire loads of new people thinking some sort of revolution in remote working is coming and that they can offer technology to support that. Not much happened there and now with hybrid / back to office policies coming back, I'm sure they have masses of permies to offload.

[DrewG]

It's like buses, I tell you.

No sooner than I agree terms for a new gig and get the contract sent off for review than my network pipes up with a couple more opportunities.

Mind, I had been looking since June / July hoping to escape my current client as soon as the right opportunity came along.

That's why I'm seeing friends work multiple roles at once. With all the talk of being on the bench for 3 - 11 months, I don't see why more people aren't doing it if your role doesn't require a tulip ton of calls (mine does).

[BigDataPro]

That's why I'm seeing friends work multiple roles at once. With all the talk of being on the bench for 3 - 11 months, I don't see why more people aren't doing it if your role doesn't require a tulip ton of calls (mine does).

When they can't find a single role, how on earth multiple roles are feasible?

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

That's why I'm seeing friends work multiple roles at once. With all the talk of being on the bench for 3 - 11 months, I don't see why more people aren't doing it if your role doesn't require a tulip ton of calls (mine does).

It is the dream, but the moment two of them schedule calls at the same time you're in a bit of hot water. Unless you have the stones to say you have a school run every morning so you can't do a call at the same time as the other. Plus juggling your time and other commitments...

If I were to do it I'd find a junior dev job I could do in my sleep as my 2nd gig, sure it'll probs be only 30k/year salary but it would be a nice top up.

[krytonsheep]

In a way that's good for the UK long term in equalising the country. ..

Seen a trend of people on a good salary moving out of London and doing remote. Not sure if the London house prices / commercial properties price will ever equalise with other parts of the country, but I'm sure they won't command the premium they once did. Personally can't think of anywhere worse to live.

[northernladuk]

Ex-colleague from when I was a permie at a bank, he worked at this bank for 17 years. He was offered redundancy and took it, bringing home more than 100k. He got a job at another bank after 3 months (3 months by choice as he went on holiday for 2 months).

Same thing happened at a local authority where I was a junior permie at the start of my career. Big organisational restructure, they offered voluntary redundancy to all employees who had been there at least 2 years (I hadn't). The redundancy package agreed with the unions was 2.7 months of salary for every year of service. Ludicrous!

Yep seen this before. Some of the long terms at the pharma in Macclesfield I mentioned were leaving with 6 figure sums and walking in to roles. I'm just a IT bod so really know but it seems counter productive to reduce heads and save money but getting rid of those heads costs a fortune. I assume they are working long term plans and the massive one hit is still cheaper over a 10+ year period. Paying someone twice their yearly salary to get rid doesn't look like much of a cost saving to me...

[ladymuck]

That's why I'm seeing friends work multiple roles at once. With all the talk of being on the bench for 3 - 11 months, I don't see why more people aren't doing it if your role doesn't require a tulip ton of calls (mine does).

I have done multiple concurrent gigs before and it was only possible because one was part-time / ad hoc type work that didn't require on site presence and the client know they were a side gig so were happy to work around my availability. The ones that have come up for me recently do not at all lend themselves towards being done in that manner. Otherwise, I definitely would have entertained the idea

[sreed]

I assume they are working long term plans and the massive one hit is still cheaper over a 10+ year period. Paying someone twice their yearly salary to get rid doesn't look like much of a cost saving to me...

It’s like Facebook paying £149m (7 years worth of rent) to break the lease on its 8 storey London office 18 years early.

I would have thought there’d be some way to sublet it and minimise their losses but I guess it’s chump change for FB, they’re 100% sure they won’t need it in the foreseeable future and they don’t want to be messing about with a non-core activity like property.
https://fortune.com/2023/09/26/meta-...brid-work/amp/

[dsc]

It’s like Facebook paying £149m (7 years worth of rent) to break the lease on its 8 storey London office 18 years early.

I would have thought there’d be some way to sublet it and minimise their losses but I guess it’s chump change for FB, they’re 100% sure they won’t need it in the foreseeable future and they don’t want to be messing about with a non-core activity like property.
https://fortune.com/2023/09/26/meta-...brid-work/amp/

On a different scale, but similar to how companies "move in" to a leased building, buy tons of fancy furniture and then simply abandon it all when leaving. You could easily sell all of it for even 20% of the cost of buying and make up some money, but instead they pay another company to remove everything as it's too much hassle to do it themselves (or deal with any arising issue after the sale). I reckon it's the same here, they just don't want to **** around, time is money and if a decision to move has been made, then that's it.