State of the Market

[Peoplesoft bloke]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

[willendure]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

You don't think the two are linked?

[oliverson]

It would be nice to have a separate thread for the wannabe Warren Buffets and save this one for tales of the state of the market in contracts.

Totally agree

[dsc]

My client (mid sized FS firm) is at the early stages of (yet another) reorg triggered by the firing/resignation of their c-suite Tech guy.

Apparently their parent co has given them a payroll reduction target and (at least according to my manager) the new king of the hill is considering using more contractors instead of perm hires. To balance that out he also said that the consultants they've appointed have reported that their salary scales and rates in the delivery teams are 'too high', whatever that means.

They've been trying to get rid of day-rate contractors (I'm now on a PAYE FTC until Christmas) outside super specialist short-term roles so it'll be interesting to see how this pans out...

In my case there already was a re-org like a year ago, but mostly just shifting people around, this time though it's pretty major, with new org groups and the new manager is hell bent on pushing people hard and thinks consultants are just money grabbing lazy bastards, so pretty much every non-permie is going out. Of course that leads to situations where a bunch of skill-less permies are left and the consultants who've been doing the brunt of the work or have very niche skills are getting chopped. All this whilst announcing left / right that there's so much work coming in 2025 that everyone will be uber busy and not realising that if you cut some skilled people, they won't be available in 6 months time when the work load comes.

Gotta love those "digital transformation" idiots at the steering wheel...

[GJABS]

Right, I've just finished my gig on Friday, so budge up on the (unfortunately very long) bench please.

I've just gone onto my LinkedIn, for the first time in a couple of weeks, and was greeted with this:



Unemployed! Grrr

[Ketto]

In my case there already was a re-org like a year ago, but mostly just shifting people around, this time though it's pretty major, with new org groups and the new manager is hell bent on pushing people hard and thinks consultants are just money grabbing lazy bastards, so pretty much every non-permie is going out. Of course that leads to situations where a bunch of skill-less permies are left and the consultants who've been doing the brunt of the work or have very niche skills are getting chopped. All this whilst announcing left / right that there's so much work coming in 2025 that everyone will be uber busy and not realising that if you cut some skilled people, they won't be available in 6 months time when the work load comes.

Gotta love those "digital transformation" idiots at the steering wheel...

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

[dsc]

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

It seems that if the upper mgmt is clueless about what the company actually does, they often go for a "digital transformation" as if that's the sure way to increasing efficiency etc. it's basically what Agile was back in 2015-2020, the magical ticket to hyper-efficient organisations.

As for re-applying to your own positions, that's also happening where I am now, some people suddenly found their name not on the new org charts and having to re-apply to their own positions effectively. One manager I worked with recently has really been fecked by this, he agreed to be an interim manager for a whole team which he thought would be a positive thing to have on his CV and now that whole team was wiped from the org chart, so he's basically an interim manager of nothing and has to apply to another position elsewhere in the business or have no job. If he stayed as a standard manager and not taken the interim position, he would've been placed in a new team for ops and still have a job without having to reapply to anything.

[tsmith]

Is it just me or is permie life just constant reorganisations, worries about redundancy, applying for your own job etc? I’m not sure having a permanent role is any more secure than contracting for
many, just minus the war chest we get to build up.

Unless the company is a unicorn with hockey stick revenue growth then high probability = yes

My first perm job - small start up head count was just flat for 3 years. Should have left after a year. Working in an industry in decline - but no layoffs

2nd perm - Lost count of rounds of redundancy + restructures. Large bricks and mortar type biz. Another industry massively disrupted by digital and struggling to cope

At least 5 redundancy rounds - reorgs were are yearly occurrence at least. Again should have left years before. But was doing my own startup behind scenes so suited me - as my boss was fired and wasnt replaced.

If you apply for perm check the glassdoor reviews. Its amazing how many are hiring but then recent reviews. "Constant layoffs/reorgs"

Heres a real example

"There is no business strategy or direction (or if there is, it changes every week, as the CEO pleases).

Most decisions are made at the top, so don't expect to be respected as an expert in your field - if the CEO says it needs to be done completely the opposite way, there is no way anyone will disagree or voice their concerns.

Expect your skills to worsen while you're at xxx - there isn't much opportunity to show them off or apply them

The turnover is so high. It is shocking. Most people I met during my first week during intros have told me they are leaving"

[Bluenose]

Doesn't seem much uncertainty about the UK election. Labour to win big, just a question of how big.

Uncertainty on tax policy.

[Smartie]

Uncertainty on tax policy.

Not that much uncertainty, given how much the incoming government have decided to stick with existing plans (e.g. tax bands frozen) and ruled out increases to several types of tax (e.g. income tax).
The certainty is that whoever is going to be in power, taxes ARE going up.