Reply to: State of the Market

[hobnob]

I'm blaming it on the WFH brigade. What we have in mainstream recruitment is a bunch of kids who are basically doing absolutely FA. They've 'learned their trade' sat at the kitchen table since lockdowns, nobody to press them, challenge them, teach them how to be professional, courteous, how to pick up a phone and call people, how to answer the phone when people call, etc. I attribute a lot of what we are seeing to this. There are some good agents but as you say, the millenials and beyond aren't them. Most of the really good agents I knew from my London days are long gone. Replaced by this shower. I honestly believe if these people were back in the office 5 days a week and supervised, trained, etc, we'd all be in a better place.

I don't think that's a Millennial issue. They were born between 1981 and 1996, so most of them are in their 30s now, with some in their 40s. I.e. they would have been working in offices for several years before lockdown started in 2020. If you're talking about generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) then you might have a point; even then, their parents should ideally have taught them how to make a phone call long before they entered the workforce.

[avonleigh]

Yup blame the kids. Dead market is nothing to whatsoever to do with the general state of the economy, or rates of investment in the UK. And if you can't pin the blame on the kids, well it must be the small boats, or the French, or the weather, or AI, or ...

Encouraging to hear that Jobserver numbers are up around 40K though!

Where exactly did I blame the kids? Did you actually read my comments? My comment had nothing to do with the state of the market. It was just about kids have different mentality than my generation.
State of market is down to a mixture of ir35, brexit, outsourcing and successive incompetent governments and possibly AI (although not convinced on that)

[ladymuck]

Do not open a coffee shop. You won't make money and will only lose money. The volume of transactions required is high and people don't want coffee after 2pm, generally. I don't know a single person that has opened a coffee shop, even in a good high transaction area, that hasn't lost money and eventually had to shut up shop.

That's why you see so many come and go.

Agreed. Open a wine shop instead.

[willendure]

Yup blame the kids. Dead market is nothing to whatsoever to do with the general state of the economy, or rates of investment in the UK. And if you can't pin the blame on the kids, well it must be the small boats, or the French, or the weather, or AI, or ...

Encouraging to hear that Jobserver numbers are up around 40K though!

[avonleigh]

This gives me "old man shouts at clouds" vibes. I don't share your view.

My kids are late 20s / early 30s and they and all their friends whom I've ever met are intelligent, capable, polite, thoughtful, hard working and no worse in any way than I and my peers were 30 years previously. Better in many ways, in fact. I also interact with a lot of people 30-40 years younger than me in work and in other arenas, and I find them no more rude or inconsiderate or lazy than people my own age, on balance.

Well most of my friends and people I speak to share my sentiments. So I am not sure what world you are living in. Even Prince William has said there kids don't have phones cos social media is killing families. And have you seen how many teachers are leaving the profession?

[sadkingbilly]

Do not open a coffee shop. You won't make money and will only lose money. The volume of transactions required is high and people don't want coffee after 2pm, generally. I don't know a single person that has opened a coffee shop, even in a good high transaction area, that hasn't lost money and eventually had to shut up shop.

That's why you see so many come and go.

yeh, better to open a knocking shop.

[Snooky]

It's not just agents. The new generation generally are very rude, lazy and don't have respect for people. Not all of course but a lot of them are like that. This is not down to WFH but social media. Kids now think that life is easy and they can make £££ doing stupid tiktok and youtube videos. The way they speak to their elders is also appalling. I am including my own kids in this statement. Then you have AI coming in which makes things worse not better. As you don't need to work anymore when you can cheat. Then people will say kids have it hard now with mental health issues. Again, largely caused by social media.

This gives me "old man shouts at clouds" vibes. I don't share your view.

My kids are late 20s / early 30s and they and all their friends whom I've ever met are intelligent, capable, polite, thoughtful, hard working and no worse in any way than I and my peers were 30 years previously. Better in many ways, in fact. I also interact with a lot of people 30-40 years younger than me in work and in other arenas, and I find them no more rude or inconsiderate or lazy than people my own age, on balance.

[agentzero]

I'm not too bothered now TBH.
SNIP
I could open a coffee shop, but does not sound like fun or could do some teaching at a local college, again not the kind of challenges I enjoy TBF.
SNIP

Do not open a coffee shop. You won't make money and will only lose money. The volume of transactions required is high and people don't want coffee after 2pm, generally. I don't know a single person that has opened a coffee shop, even in a good high transaction area, that hasn't lost money and eventually had to shut up shop.

That's why you see so many come and go.

[sadkingbilly]

[avonleigh]

I'm blaming it on the WFH brigade. What we have in mainstream recruitment is a bunch of kids who are basically doing absolutely FA. They've 'learned their trade' sat at the kitchen table since lockdowns, nobody to press them, challenge them, teach them how to be professional, courteous, how to pick up a phone and call people, how to answer the phone when people call, etc. I attribute a lot of what we are seeing to this. There are some good agents but as you say, the millenials and beyond aren't them. Most of the really good agents I knew from my London days are long gone. Replaced by this shower. I honestly believe if these people were back in the office 5 days a week and supervised, trained, etc, we'd all be in a better place.

It's not just agents. The new generation generally are very rude, lazy and don't have respect for people. Not all of course but a lot of them are like that. This is not down to WFH but social media. Kids now think that life is easy and they can make £££ doing stupid tiktok and youtube videos. The way they speak to their elders is also appalling. I am including my own kids in this statement. Then you have AI coming in which makes things worse not better. As you don't need to work anymore when you can cheat. Then people will say kids have it hard now with mental health issues. Again, largely caused by social media.

[oliverson]

The phone has continued to ring through October, I am getting about one call a day on average, through October.

There is a market and it is normalising, through a very, very bleak 18 month period.

The treatment you get from the market is the same if you are in the 500 EUR pd range or the 1500 EUR pd range.

You are still doomed if you get phoned up by a millenial working at a recruitment agency in London.

Strangely, statisitically speaking I am not as doomed if contacted by an Indian based recruiter. Yes there are other problems when dealing with India based recruiters but I am finding them easier and more reliable as time passes than the London based mob. I think the London based mob try to tick boxes more, the India based mob tends to be a bit more flexible. The Indian based recruiters do seem to have Linkedin recruiter licensed, which I think also helps.

I'm blaming it on the WFH brigade. What we have in mainstream recruitment is a bunch of kids who are basically doing absolutely FA. They've 'learned their trade' sat at the kitchen table since lockdowns, nobody to press them, challenge them, teach them how to be professional, courteous, how to pick up a phone and call people, how to answer the phone when people call, etc. I attribute a lot of what we are seeing to this. There are some good agents but as you say, the millenials and beyond aren't them. Most of the really good agents I knew from my London days are long gone. Replaced by this shower. I honestly believe if these people were back in the office 5 days a week and supervised, trained, etc, we'd all be in a better place.

[Fraidycat]

There is a market and it is normalising, through a very, very bleak 18 month period.
.

It is just one data point but jobserve headline number has been hovering around 40,000 for the last month, compared to 20,000 for most this year.

The number perked up last year after the election but crashed after the budget and stayed down until this month.

[sadkingbilly]

Back at my desk after walking the dogs, coffee at the clubhouse outside in the sunshine and looking at blue sky and greenery outside and the c. 800m mountain right behind us, wondering whether 'the industry has retired me'. Wondering whether that chapter of my life (contracting) is truly over.

I guess it's a case of seeing what horror show this budget brings before deciding whether to sell here (Spain) or the UK.

sell UK.
enjoy.

[Bluenose]

The phone has continued to ring through October, I am getting about one call a day on average, through October.

There is a market and it is normalising, through a very, very bleak 18 month period.

The treatment you get from the market is the same if you are in the 500 EUR pd range or the 1500 EUR pd range.

You are still doomed if you get phoned up by a millenial working at a recruitment agency in London.

Strangely, statisitically speaking I am not as doomed if contacted by an Indian based recruiter. Yes there are other problems when dealing with India based recruiters but I am finding them easier and more reliable as time passes than the London based mob. I think the London based mob try to tick boxes more, the India based mob tends to be a bit more flexible. The Indian based recruiters do seem to have Linkedin recruiter licensed, which I think also helps.

[AndyGarbs]

You can take a horse to water...

If you can establish that the contract had fundamentally different working practices than the employment, then you are in the best case scenario, which means that you (and the client) will still be a target for investigation (), but you will probably be left with the huge benefit of a prolonged period of stress and some lost time and money, but not a huge tax bill. Yay.

Crucially, almost all of these scenarios that involve a transition to or from employment are administered by clueless contractors and clients, so you can be pretty sure that there wasn't a fundamental change in working practices that was carefully documented and, most likely, any assessment of IR35 was itself pretty cursory and engaged with the contractual terms alone. Rather, the numpty contractor continued business as usual and the numpty supply chain was happy to continue as though nothing had changed. Good luck with that.

Seriously, do you really think that someone doing roughly the same things under two separate contractual arrangements will really win their argument that they were apples and pears? Literally the whole point of IR35 is to look through this cretinous fluff to establish a hypothetical contract based on actual working practices. Your absolute best hope is that you never get investigated. There is a good chance you won't, to be fair.

As I keep saying, Chapter 10 is far from risk free w/r to where the liabilities will eventually fall. Ultimately, if there is an employer and employee and the employer makes a mistake with the taxation of employee income, any underpaid tax will be recovered from the employee. You don't get to keep the money. In principle, the same could happen with Chapter 10. We'll have to wait and see.

Back at my desk after walking the dogs, coffee at the clubhouse outside in the sunshine and looking at blue sky and greenery outside and the c. 800m mountain right behind us, wondering whether 'the industry has retired me'. Wondering whether that chapter of my life (contracting) is truly over.

I guess it's a case of seeing what horror show this budget brings before deciding whether to sell here (Spain) or the UK.

Sell UK (even before the Budget is announced), you'll be clobbered for Stamp Duty, IHC