Reply to: State of the Market

[dsc]

I hear a lot of "I'm leaving!", usually in the same breath as complaining about immigration. Not on this forum of course, God forfend!

As if there is some special open-arms policy in the rest of the world for negative, grumpy old British blokes.

As if the destination countries aren't under similar pressures with similar problems, or worse.

In fact it's as you are finding it. In addition to having to satisfy the rules and restrictions, you would have to basically abandon your life here. I've only lived part of my life here and I wouldn't want to do it again

It makes me wonder how invested people are, how many friends they have. How much they value their neighbours and their role in their society.

The whole "I'm leaving!" usually comes from people who have no idea how hard emigration is and who have never lived outside of their own country. Moving your whole family, moving your kids away from their friends / yourself from your friends / family is super hard on most people, let alone having to navigate life in a place where they don't speak your language. When I moved to the UK almost 20yrs ago I was young, didn't have many strong friendships back in Poland and it was hard enough to adjust, I think it took around 10yrs to feel kind of like home here and another 10yrs to start to get used to it.

[willendure]

A lot say they want to emigrate ... but to which country? As far as I can tell the whole of Europe ... except Switzerland .... is as bad as here....and good luck trying to get into Switzerland. The Middle East .. especially Dubai ... is often mentioned but it's simply too hot there for at least half the year. Australia is a nightmare ... at least 40 people applying for each job. New Zealand maybe?

If everywhere is going down the pan, maybe we need to step back and wonder why?

The "west" has a problem, and that problem is that the biggest generation is the baby boomers and they are retiring. They had less kids than earlier generations, and in almost all countries down the generations gen X, millenial, gen Z the size gets smaller. It means our workforce is shrinking and therefore our GDP is getting smaller and our countries are getting poorer. GDP = workforce size * productivity.

That is a big part of what this is all about, because one "solution" is to take in lots of immigrants to make up the population shortfall. The difficulty of course is that it creates social tension.

Interesting cases are Canada and Japan.

Canada was the most immigration friendly country in the West for a long time. Much less so now, because the social issues eventually got too much.

Japan just doesn't like foreigners so the immigration solution was not followed there (changing now though, I believe)! They also had their baby boom much earlier so their economy is ahead of the rest of us in terms of its decline so we can use it as a window into our possible future. When a population shrinks those that remain inherit and accumulate the wealth, so individual Japanese can be very well off despite the state of their countries finances.

USA has a millenial generation that is larger than the boomers. In 2030 when they enter the second half of their careers and maximum earning, the USA will have a new productivity boom. There is no doubt in my mind that the USA is going to find itself back on top for so many reasons.

China has the fastest aging population of all - on average, obviously we all age 1 day at a time! China is so screwed. I think a decade from now there will be some kind of famine with a huge chunk of the population dying off or some other horific scenario such as civil war.

India still has the classic pyramid shaped demographics, with few older people and as you go down in age each generation is bigger, with a a high birth rate at the bottom. That explains the strong consumer led boom there.

Dubai and the middle east is hot, but you get used to it. In the UK when it gets hot its just a couple of days at a time and we have no time to acclimatize. If its hot all the time, then after a couple of weeks its just normal. My dad spent most of his working life over there and loved it. I remember cycling around on my bike in 45C as a kid. When it hits 25C in the UK I just melt.

[SussexSeagull]

Agent refused to put me forward for a contract yesterday as I don't have a degree. Couldn't believe it. Been doing this role for 28 years.

As a fellow non graduate (peaked at HND level) I was going to say that is nonsense by the agent and as never happened to me, although it is entirely possible it has and UI never found out about it.

[herman_g]

As far as I can tell the whole of Europe ... except Switzerland .... is as bad as here.

That's nonsense.

Even Greece, where I spend most of my time, has not had a cost of living crisis like the UK. For example during peak energy prices, the government was heavily subsidizing everybody's bills.

My client (a top 5 Dutch bank) is persistently losing contractors to their competitors. There is definitely a shortage of contractors in the Netherlands. The bank has started recruiting UK remote contractors - 3 in my "tribe" in the last 6 weeks. 2 of those contractors I've wotked with beforew in the UK and they have both been out of work for over a year).

[uk contractor]

This 100%....

As an aside it is not just IT just been in Primark today, what an eye opener....I reckon 90% of the staff were Indian you would not think you were in a store in the UK, security, tills, shop floor, managers....you name it...very few non Indians employed.

How was this ever allowed to happen....Brits should have priority simple as that....but now were all snookered .....it is not just in IT it seems...

Yep not just IT that sneaky deal our useless PM signed with the Indian PM recently just solidified the blatant onshoring & replacement of UK born workers in all industries....Asda is the same as Primark non indian staff wise as are many of the high street now if anything its accelerating and I could take an educated guess that of the 8M poor souls on universal credit now 99.9% of those were born in the UK & would rather do some hard work (if it were an even playing field!).

[mogga71]

I hear a lot of "I'm leaving!", usually in the same breath as complaining about immigration. Not on this forum of course, God forfend!

As if there is some special open-arms policy in the rest of the world for negative, grumpy old British blokes.

As if the destination countries aren't under similar pressures with similar problems, or worse.

In fact it's as you are finding it. In addition to having to satisfy the rules and restrictions, you would have to basically abandon your life here. I've only lived part of my life here and I wouldn't want to do it again

It makes me wonder how invested people are, how many friends they have. How much they value their neighbours and their role in their society.

A lot say they want to emigrate ... but to which country? As far as I can tell the whole of Europe ... except Switzerland .... is as bad as here....and good luck trying to get into Switzerland. The Middle East .. especially Dubai ... is often mentioned but it's simply too hot there for at least half the year. Australia is a nightmare ... at least 40 people applying for each job. New Zealand maybe?

[Bluenose]

But the trouble is, we'd need a visa to remain there, obvious choices are digital nomad visa or non-lucrative visa. Now, to qualify for the DNV I'd need a client, etc, etc, but as we're all finding out, there's hardly any work out there.

Yeah, its tough but you only need to put 3K GBP a month through a UK PAYE to qualify, the bar is not high (in normal times) but it is August.

[oliverson]

Tricky oliverson as lots on here wanting to leave the UK, if you have a bolt hole/home abroad I'd keep hold of it for now....if at all possible...gives you options...can you not rent it out?

We rented it out for a few years to holidaymakers when the financial crisis hit us hard. They just treat it like a zoo. Sitting on expensive interior furniture with sun lotion on. Leaving the air conditioning on all day. Etc. The long term rental market has its own issues, mostly squatters rights. There are loads of properties for sale over there that come complete with squatters. I kid you not. They have some kind of rights over there worse than we have.

But keeping it would be the best outcome. Keeping both places would be wonderful but it needs me to land an outside contract that is totally remote. A big ask at present.

[Dorkeaux]

<Snip-o-rama> Reading some of the comments on here makes me think were selling the wrong place! But the trouble is, we'd need a visa to remain there, obvious choices are digital nomad visa or non-lucrative visa. Now, to qualify for the DNV.......

but I doubt anyone gives a flying ****.

I hear a lot of "I'm leaving!", usually in the same breath as complaining about immigration. Not on this forum of course, God forfend!

As if there is some special open-arms policy in the rest of the world for negative, grumpy old British blokes.

As if the destination countries aren't under similar pressures with similar problems, or worse.

In fact it's as you are finding it. In addition to having to satisfy the rules and restrictions, you would have to basically abandon your life here. I've only lived part of my life here and I wouldn't want to do it again

It makes me wonder how invested people are, how many friends they have. How much they value their neighbours and their role in their society.

[Cookielove]

Tricky oliverson as lots on here wanting to leave the UK, if you have a bolt hole/home abroad I'd keep hold of it for now....if at all possible...gives you options...can you not rent it out?

[Cookielove]

All those companies you mention are on the indian outsourcing train they all have 1st class tickets in avoiding employing anyone outside of the outsourcer resource pool (I avoided using the word talent pool for obvious reasons as it does not take much talent to sit in a packed room using google search to find your coding samples!).

It is what it is the government need to step in put in blanket restrictions on this underhand practice of allowing jobs to be stolen onshore by people who then jump onto another visa scheme in the outsourcing pyramid scam scheme (seems to be the same 1-2 giant outsourcers controlling the entire industry now 1 can even afford to sponsor the Ferrari F1 team car is how much money they are making!).

This 100%....

As an aside it is not just IT just been in Primark today, what an eye opener....I reckon 90% of the staff were Indian you would not think you were in a store in the UK, security, tills, shop floor, managers....you name it...very few non Indians employed.

How was this ever allowed to happen....Brits should have priority simple as that....but now were all snookered .....it is not just in IT it seems...

[oliverson]

They said the same to me for computer science, however things look different now. Although my undergrad was free and my masters was £10k, from Oxford Uni.

And to think, I was pi55ed off in 1995 when I started my Computer Science degree (where I received a 1st and award for best final year project in the school, not that I blow my own trumpet), and I missed out on the mature student grant by one year!! That's a full £ 1k I was robbed of !!

[SchumiStars]

If your son graduates from either Oxford or Cambridge with a law degree he will have no trouble getting a job. If it's a law degree from Derby Uni (where I went) then he has just wasted 90k

They said the same to me for computer science, however things look different now. Although my undergrad was free and my masters was £10k, from Oxford Uni.

[oliverson]

Yes this is the worry. But what can you do? It's something we wants to do. I can't push him into something he doesn't want to do. I am just hoping things improve by then. Once he has graduated I will be advising him to leave UK though. Only reason I am still here is cos I am 55 and have a 10 year old in school. So not feasible for me.

We have decided to sell our Spanish property and remain in the UK. In fact, we're heading down there in a few weeks to get the place done up and sold. Reading some of the comments on here makes me think were selling the wrong place! But the trouble is, we'd need a visa to remain there, obvious choices are digital nomad visa or non-lucrative visa. Now, to qualify for the DNV I'd need a client, etc, etc, but as we're all finding out, there's hardly any work out there. But for the NLV, you have to prove you have enough financial security so as not to depend on working. Not a problem, but you simply CANNOT do any work whilst on that visa. That creates a problem for me because I love money so much and have a few ideas that may make it to the App Stores. Whilst the cost of living in Spain is lower than here, can I really see myself living there permanently? It's a big ask. Days like today with the warm weather and sunshine make me realise I don't really like that kind of climate anymore. Amplify that when living in the Andalucia.

It's an eternal struggle for us making the best choice. One place has to go and soon, unless a contract were to land in my lap (unlikely). I should really set up a poll for this but I doubt anyone gives a flying ****.

[oliverson]

...

We probably need a re-run of the late 1940s nationalisation policies to enable strategically organised provision of water, sewerage, electricity and gas supply to make these essential services available at competitive cost. This would not please the 'net zero' supporters since would inevitably mean pushing out aspirational dates.

You can only imagine all the strikes if that were to happen. You think the NHS slackers have the country by the bollocks? I'm thinking back to the 70's.