Good news everyone!

[andrewducker]

| UK jobless total falls, it says here.

Just because it's nice to have some good news occasionally, and show that the people running the economy (insofar as you can run an economy) are doing a reasonable job:

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the number of people out of work in the three months to May fell by 20,000 on the previous quarter to 1,474,000, bringing the unemployment rate down to 5%.

Average earnings increased by 3.4% in the three months to May, up from April's figure of 3.2%.

The data also showed that the number of jobs in the economy grew by 101,000 to a new record of 27.91 million people.

However, the ONS also showed the number of people out of work and claiming benefit rose by 1,700 last month to 952,000.

Comments

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

Sadly I think unemployment in IT is still a fair way above the national average and salaries are still depressed :o(

[andrewducker]

By 'depressed', you of course mean "above the national average".

Unless the average IT person is being paid less than £21k, which I doubt.

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

By depressed I mean that for some positions salaries are up to 30 percent lower than they were a year or two ago. Which presents a real problem for people in the industry.

Frankly I don't give a monkeys how my salary compares to the national average, I'm interested in how it compares to my outgoings and the financial plans I have made.

If you have a mortgage thats affordabillity was calculated on your salary, a thirty percent drop is devastating.

Of course you only get this if you move job, but that makes it very difficult if you're in a bad position, and makes the threat of redundancy (which is rife at the moment) that much more worrying.

[andrewducker]

Aah, well yes, if you made your plans when the tech market was mid-bubble, you are in trouble.

I'm still amazed by the tech-stock bubble. It looked completely ridiculous at the time and I could never understand why people who otherwise seemed smart thought that it would lead to anything other than collapse.

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

But what we are now seeing is an equaly unsutainable and irregular trough.

My salary is a fair way higher than the national average, but not unreasonably so for a skilled professional in a managerial position. The sales managers earn a similar level for skilled expertise and responsibility.

Salaries are driven by supply and demand, while competent professionals with decent experience and who arent muppets still form a relatively small part of the population as a whole, because everyone has been slashing IT budgets there's lots of people around and companies are lower salaries as a result.

This wont carry on. IT is not a 'nice to have', its the cost of doing business. Like phones, rent and electricity. Except for a few small scale exceptions no company can do business without IT. As the world marches ever onwards towards global communications and smarter and smaller data devices, this will only increase.

What will finaly weed the industry out isnt going to be salaries lowering, its going to be expectations of staff raising. i.e. IT professionals will need to be chartered and qualified, much like engineers, accountants and solicitors.

[andrewducker]

I'm sure charterign will happen eventually, but the problem is that there's so much scope for people doing little bits around the edges that wouldn't require a chartered consultant.

There are far too many know-nothings around at the moment, it has to be said. Still, as a know-something, I'm not too worried, as I tend to get promoted faster :->

[thepaintedone.livejournal.com]

Stuff at the edges will be fine. Small companies dont employ a chartered accountant, they either outsource the work or else hire someone who knows what the are doing but doenst have the credentials (often a multi-jobber, e.g. they do HR as well). It will be exactly the same.

Neither will all IT professionals be chartered, the same way most accounts departments have teams of admin staff and just a few chartered professionals.

[derumi.livejournal.com]

At least it's not because the jobless suicide rate is up or something. 9_9

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

I get a job, and the bbc get involved...

What a world