Vocal Voices

It is said to be booming with job vacancies soaring, yet at the same time there are skills shortages, or so say the headlines. Then the detail gets a bit thin.

Where are the jobs, what positions need filling, and what are the skills we are short of? Are the jobs 'careers' or temporary? What salaries are being offered?

I am happy that there is work out there and jobs to be had, but I suspect that workers will still need in-work benefits to be able to live on them. I hope that I am wrong. I looked around a few local job sites and most of the vacancies are in hospitality, retail, admin / clerical with a few short term 'apprenticeships' thrown in. The pandemic has shown them to be a risky long term option.

I am being bombarded, on a daily basis, with job requirements in the IT security area. Literally, sometime up to 15 jobs in a day.

These are mainly contract jobs. Many inside IR35 which get short shrift. I've even stopped replying to agencies telling them "don't send me jobs inside IR35".

These jobs are not all in the UK either. The Mainland also has an IT security skills shortage judging by the number of adverts. It appears that all of these data breaches and crypto attacks have companies looking back at the last 10 years of refusing to implement Data Loss Protection (DLP) and Identity security and are starting to realise their security posture is Low.

I do also receive other jobs, it's not just security which is booming right now. I can see signs of the temporary nature of home working becoming much more permanent in the types of jobs on offer.

Right now I'm reading that service industry confidence is higher than it has been in 24 years. Hardly a surprise that when you take an industry out of the freezer it warms up and starts doing exponentially more than it did when it was in the freezer.

Wages will always be an issue but, it seems, jobs which are scarce are starting to grow higher wages. Also there is a seismic shift in job rates inside IR35. They had been driven down below outside rates during the pandemic. Now I'm seeing close to double the rates, so there is pressure there.

In the hospitality trade, I can see wages rising so long as there is a lack of staff and these were often very vulnerable wage levels.

Not forgetting the figure of 80,000 needed in the fruit and veg picking
Numbers spoken by farmers on tv earlier in the week