What's going on here??

dan_d

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this thread - Mods, please move to a more appropriate location if you want.

Okay, so I'm job hunting at the moment. Between yesterday and this morning, I've gone through every recruitment website I can think of - literally, every job they have posted, not just the ones particular to my field.

The majority of "professional" jobs I've come across are for people who have 5-10 years experience in their field, and have very particular skills. There are, however, quite a lot of jobs advertised - admittedly though, not in my field, but I'm looking around outside it. This morning, however I opened the FAS website, as I have done before. There are currently 79 jobs up in the Dublin region from yesterday alone. Maybe 10 of these are WPP jobs.

There are 450,000 on the dole, there or thereabouts.

The numbers just don't add up. Why are there so many jobs advertised and yet so many on the dole? I appreciate we don't have nearly enough jobs to give all 450,000 people work, but there is work out there for some of them. Are people just not taking the jobs? And why not? I suspect it is probably to do with pay - many FAS jobs are offering 9.50eur per hour, or a salary of say 25k for 39 hours a week. Personally, if I had no qualifications and had been on the dole for a number of months with no other prospects, I'd take the job. In fact, if it comes to it and I find myself stuck here for much more time, I'll be applying for some of those jobs.

Has anyone any light to shed on this, because I find it absolutely bewildering. Every day I hear people on the radio giving out about how they're on the dole, and how the government have ruined the country, and how good honest Irish people can't get the jobs they used to.....yet we appear to be turning up our noses at the jobs that ARE there, particularly those for people who are unqualified to do anything in particular. Are there really people out there who consider it's better to get 200eur a week free and whinge about how terrible things are, than to just take the jobs that ARE out there?

When are we going to get over ourselves?

ei.sdraob

Large majority of these unemployed are from our construction sector as was mentioned in the last CSO report

They choice for them is either retrain or emigrate, short of another bubble popping up and we dont want that


but yes i know what you mean, i find these "X years experience in IT tech Y" ads amusing especially when the tech Y existed for X-N years less :P
thats what you get when HR people get to write job ads, thats been the case for long time

Sleepy

It's just not worth many peoples time to take these jobs either tbh. If you've a family to support you're better off on Welfare than you are in a job earning less than €40,000 or so when rent allowance and all that are taken into account.

doc_17

Yeah I remember coming out of college looking at those sites. When I did contact the employer/agency lots of the time the job was no longer there, they just didn't want to take it off their site. Think about it. How long would any of these websites last if there were no jobs to advertise on them?

mikemac

A company will advertise a position.
Sometimes they will employ recruitment agents also so you are seeing the same job several times.

If you were to look at unique jobs only advertised once on a website there would be far fewer there

But certainly there are sectors in Ireland hiring and times are pretty good if you're job hunting
I don't know about the IT area though

average_runner

If its not worht while working for anything under 40,000, aint sure what planet your living on.


Alot of people working full time in shops, factories etc arent near 40,000 and are supporting kids and still going on good holidays!!


Problem with alot of staff is when we tried to recruit grads for IT they expect too much of a salary, even more than what it was before the recession. So better off to get an experience person, might cost more but you gain more.

Grads need a big come down or they can go off to some other country or stay unemployed.

dan_d

My background is construction-civil engineering. There are no jobs available there. So I'm looking outside construction. I have a degree so I am in a position to do that, to an extent...it fulfills at least one of the many expectations for most employers.

I didn't say anything about my salary expectations. With 5 years fairly decent experience, I'd be happy to get anything from 30k up, and I don't expect to get much more than 30k. Which I don't actually think is unreasonable - however I'm looking for jobs that can/should pay that money, as opposed to jobs that used to pay that money when things were way over-inflated. I am also looking at every individual website of every company I can think of or find links to, as I know recruitment websites re-post things - you've to wade through piles of repetitive and unrelated rubbish before you have a chance of finding anything, if you're lucky.

It'll be interesting to see if they cut welfare in Dec budget...if the dole suddenly dropped to 100eur a wk or something, I wonder how many people who are currently maintaining the "I'm not working for anything less than 35k" attitude, will suddenly decide they're better off in a job paying 9.50eur an hour, coz there's nothing else.

Average-runner, what happens when a grad tells you a salary expectation that's too much? Do they turn down the offer you make them, or do you not bother offering the job to them? Surely after turning down a few offers, and not finding any more jobs, any grad in their right mind would take the next job offered to them?

ei.sdraob, as I'm not into IT, I can't comment on that, but I do find it amusing (and frustrating) to see jobs for wind energy engineers, or renewable energy engineers, looking for 5-10 years experience in the wind energy or renewables sector, when neither of those sectors have existed in this country on any kind of a scale for that long. Where are people going with these ads??

I suppose to get to the point of what I'm saying - as you rightly point out, many of those unemployed are construction sector.(incl. myself) Therefore, by extension, quite a large a percentage of those have no qualifications (I'm not casting aspersions on individuals, but I have experience of the sector). Bearing in mind a conversation I had with an individual in the business who was a GO, recently, where he informed me that the CIF wanted them to take a paycut so he'd be taking home about 600eur a wk, and it wasn't worth his time doing anything unless he was taking home at least 800eur a week (more than me I might point out).....what IS going on here??Is that attitude the reason why FÁS have at least 80 jobs in the Dublin region alone everyday and yet the unemployment numbers are apparently not decreasing by any amount???

munstergirl

Some of the job adverts on job sites have been there for months.

Example mobile phone new shop in limerick, they must be recruiting for the last 6 months, i applied, 10 years retail exp, mobile phone experience, did i hear anything back, no. I know a lot of unemployed people who applied too for the same job, plenty of experience + good references and not as much as a telephone interview.

I went for another job got interview, told me hundreds of applicants, did not get it, but i see the same job advertised every 6 weeks or so.

Been for 2 interviews with 2 different companies, sent follow up thank you email, and never heard anything again. Not even a no.

I still haven't given up on job hunting but have managed to get part time job, not through skills or experience but through a friend.

Went for another interview, offered to work for free to make sure i am the right fit, nothing.

Best of luck with your job hunting, it is really depressing.

Yes i agree there are plenty of spongers, but there are people who just don't want to work even when there were plenty of jobs.

Not all jobs that are displayed are real jobs either. Just recruitment companies harvesting cv's.

average_runner

We dont even make an offer to them once they tell us their expectations.

We actually given up interviewing grads now and so have alot of IT companies

RichardAnd

Good points Dan but you have to understand that places like Job.ie and IrishJobs are wholly misleading in many ways. Both will advertise jobs that may not exist and both allow agencies to advertise and agency jobs are always dodgy.

But there's more to it than this. First of, there may be 450k unemployed but there isn't that number of job hunters out there. Perhaps 300k or so of the unemployed are really looking for work, the rest are the unemployable that were always with us.

Next, there is a distinct lack of "un-skilled" work that the building boom provided. Most jobs up are "professional" positions that require qualifications that will rule out an aweful lot of job-hunters and this is why the recession kit the "unskilled" (I think that's a very asinine label but one I'll use) hardest.

As well as this, employers are being far more picky now. A few years ago, an IT graduate could walk into a good job that today, he wouldn't even get an interview for. Most positions I see require a year or two (at least) of experience which most graduates and school leavers will not have thus, they can not get their first job and thus they will remain unemployed.

So at first glance, job sites seem alive but if you read between the lines, you'll see everything is not quite what it seems. Sadly, the best way of getting a job right now is not trough applications but through knowing someone.

As for ei.sdraob's comment about crazy IT requirements I can name a few. I once seen a job advertisement that required the applicant to have 10+ years experience with Windows Vista... There's another problem with job hunting, HR idiots that don't know what they're talking about.

The_Honeybadger

Myself and my partner have two kids and both work on reasonable wages, she works part time as it wouldn't make any sense for her to work full time considering childcare costs, her family help out on the days we both work, and we rarely ever have a day when both of us are off together to do something with the kids. We earn just shy of 50k between us, from which we have to pay rent and all the usual bills that every working family has to contend with. No matter what way we work it out we would have a much higher quality of life on the dole. We would have all the time in the world to spend with the kids, rent paid for us and an income from the state. We both have skills which could be put to use in the black economy to top up our income, in fact one of us could potentially earn 300-400 pw from this. Is it any wonder some people won't take up low paid jobs? I would never even consider quitting my job to choose a career on the dole, but it is very attractive and could easily see why somebody might choose to do so, especially if you can top up the dole off the books. Hard to see the situation changing as 40-50k jobs aren't going to just appear for everybody overnight.

MrDarcy

dan_d wrote: »

The numbers just don't add up. Why are there so many jobs advertised and yet so many on the dole?

Because Irish people don't want to "work", they all want to "manage". Why else do you think that you never see Irish people working in Spar, Centra or Service Stations anymore??? The jobs are simply below them I think, Paddy used to have 100 people under him before the recession hit don't you know???

Sleepy

average_runner wrote: »

If its not worht while working for anything under 40,000, aint sure what planet your living on.

One where childcare costs rule out the financial viability of both parents working for many families. In the current market, my o/h simply can't find a job that would earn enough to cover the costs of childcare for our two kids and the associated costs of working (transport, work clothes etc.), and with her experience and qualifications (retail) she's unlikely to do so, so we have to support the family on a single income.

In order to bring in more than the dole and rent allowance would provide my family with, I need to be earning over 40k. Detailed figures in the 'Struggling to pay the bills' thread caseyann posted in this forum.

It's absolute madness but as much as I disagree with it, I wouldn't put my family's needs second to those of the state.

MrDarcy

Sleepy wrote: »

One where childcare costs rule out the financial viability of both parents working for many families. In the current market, my o/h simply can't find a job that would earn enough to cover the costs of childcare for our two kids and the associated costs of working (transport, work clothes etc.), and with her experience and qualifications (retail) she's unlikely to do so, so we have to support the family on a single income.

In order to bring in more than the dole and rent allowance would provide my family with, I need to be earning over 40k. Detailed figures in the 'Struggling to pay the bills' thread caseyann posted in this forum.

It's absolute madness but as much as I disagree with it, I wouldn't put my family's needs second to those of the state.

This is not an attack on you, please take that seriously. From reading your post, it sounds to me like you couldn't afford to have children. I can fully understand your desire to have a family, but it could be argued that the way the economy has been set up, with two people needing to work to be able to run a home and all the bills that inherently come with managing and sustaining a family home, that unless you have both parents out at work, then both may as well be on the dole if they have kids.

Do you not find that this is actually a peverse place to find yourself in, in terms of being a citizen of a free republic???

What I mean is that if you are a couple with a young child or children, and as is the case in most families, the main breadwinner is not on what could be reasonably considered to be an excellemt salary of say 70K plus a year or something of that order, but is in fact on 30-40K a year, and one person in the relationship loses their job, it immediately becomes a more attractive option for both people in that relationship to be living off state support than for one person in the relationship to be working in a job that pays the average industrial wage???

Sleepy

Even with the best will in the world, you can't always plan when you're going to have children MrDarcy. TBH, I'd have left it later in life if I'd had the choice which would have freed me up to go take advantage of some options I have abroad which would pay more than twice my current salary but life just doesn't work out as planned for everyone. I've no complaints though, we don't have the giant plasma screen telly, the car (singular) is 12 years old and we don't get out much but we can still manage a week somewhere sunny once a year, live in a nice area and indulge our hobbies a little off my salary. Things like health insurance and pensions have fallen by the wayside to maintain a decent life but hopefully as my career progresses these are things we can get back.

The welfare trap in this country is absolutely insane imho. Welfare rates are too high and property prices are still way beyond the average of three times the main earner's salary for anything approaching a decent area in Dublin.

A slashing of rent allowance levels combined with some form of protection for tennants whose rent is covered by the payments (i.e. the Landlords take the hit) is needed but, given that it's typically the middle aged, upper middle classes that this would hit in the pocket, I can't see a government that often appears to only represent those over the age of 40 going down that path...

MrDarcy

Sleepy wrote: »

Even with the best will in the world, you can't always plan when you're going to have children MrDarcy. TBH, I'd have left it later in life if I'd had the choice which would have freed me up to go take advantage of some options I have abroad which would pay more than twice my current salary but life just doesn't work out as planned for everyone. I've no complaints though, we don't have the giant plasma screen telly, the car (singular) is 12 years old and we don't get out much but we can still manage a week somewhere sunny once a year, live in a nice area and indulge our hobbies a little off my salary. Things like health insurance and pensions have fallen by the wayside to maintain a decent life but hopefully as my career progresses these are things we can get back.

The welfare trap in this country is absolutely insane imho. Welfare rates are too high and property prices are still way beyond the average of three times the main earner's salary for anything approaching a decent area in Dublin.

A slashing of rent allowance levels combined with some form of protection for tennants whose rent is covered by the payments (i.e. the Landlords take the hit) is needed but, given that it's typically the middle aged, upper middle classes that this would hit in the pocket, I can't see a government that often appears to only represent those over the age of 40 going down that path...

Listen I'm 100% with you on this. Sure you could have had your children when things were better for all I know and could well afford to start a family.

My point is thought that where you have two people earning in the region of 60K-70K odd between the two of them, before the deduction of tax, all it takes if you have a family, is for one of those income streams to be cut off, for you to suddenly find yourself in a place where you would be substantially better off if neither if you worked.

I think that that is a scary and a remarkable place for anyone to find themselves in a free republic. And it is clear that if you bought a property (one property to live in with a family), probably at any stage over the last 5-8 odd years, then you will find yourself "locked in", to this arrangement for the rest of your working adult life.

I'm not saying I have the answers, but I do think as a nation, we urgently need to have the debate on this. I think the greatest scam that was set upon the Irish people was to transpose the family unit in recent years from a "single parent working" arrangement to a necessity to having, "both parents working". Instead of one parent up on the industrial threadmill, we decided to accept a norm where both parents had to be up on the industrial threadmill. You would inclined to run with it I think maybe if there was a corresponding quality of life benefit for those that decided to embrace this new norm. But no, the only winners I can see here are those same demons who have wrecked this country, the banks.

Sleepy

I get your point entirely and agree with it to an extent.

That said, looking at the houses of my friends and contrasting them with the houses we all grew up in during the 80's (before they were all extensively redecorated by our parents over the past decade or two) I think it's fair to say that for the most part there has been a 'quality of life benefit' for most in having both partners working.

In my parents day, you got your mortgage and moved into a house with a few bits of furniture and gradually, as you could afford it, re-decorated the house to suit your own taste. Nowadays a young couple move in and the place looks like an ikea catelogue a month or two after.

The "Quality of Life Gain" perceived by those couples is a materialistic one - they judge their quality of life to be better because they have a nice plasma screen TV and two cars in the driveway. Sure, most of it's on credit but where both partners are still in employment and can service their loans, that's not really a problem.

The other Quality of Life gain was that of freedom for women to pursue a career rather than to "just" be a stay at home mother, something that, again, didn't really exist when my mother had to leave her job with the Bank to raise myself and my siblings. Many (most?) women prefer to have the independence and job-satisfaction of paid employment.

I'd still argue that mortgage lending should never have loosened to the point where a single income family couldn't buy a 3 bedroom house in a decent area on 3/4 times the main earner's salary. In the case of dual-income families, the banks should have been forced to consider no more than 3 times the main earners income and twice the second earners (i.e. if the second earner ceased to earn, the main earner could continue to service the loan).

briankirby

Sleepy wrote: »

It's just not worth many peoples time to take these jobs either tbh. If you've a family to support you're better off on Welfare than you are in a job earning less than €40,000 or so when rent allowance and all that are taken into account.

Still,work is work..plus,it will be good to imrove the cv when things turn around(if):D

dan_d

Good point Mr Darcy.

RichardAnd, I know that jobs sites are dodgy at best, and a thorough (and endless!!!) review shows me that most available jobs are in IT and banking - astounding really. But out of all the crap out there, I found only 2 jobs that I could conceivably have a go at, so I know things are not good on that front. When I went hunting around individual websites, I found a bit more on them that I could go for but still not much. My problem is do I keep trying to find something out there that offers me some sort of career, and progression (forget the money) or do I apply for every office manager and admin job I can see, just to get a job, which I'll hopefully be able to leave in the shorter term for something more in my line of work? No matter what, my attitude is I don't want to be on the dole. Couldn't care less what I'm earning (obviously once I can pay my bills) relative to the dole, I just want to work. Which is why I find it so hard to understand the mentality of those who seem to just choose to stay on it until a job paying 40k a year or more is handed to them on a plate (which is obviously not going to happen for many).

Sleepy, your position is one that many people seem to find themselves in, and I think it's not a good one. For me personally, I would not enjoy that situation. I am a woman - I would like to have the option to go and work if I wanted to once I have children, rather than having to stay at home all day and mind them because we are in the business of ripping each other off in this country. Particularly if I've gone to the trouble of getting myself a good education and a lot experience.Obviously in your situation it does have to be 40k a year, since your is the only income. Great reflection on the various social policies of our Gov isn't it?While I'm absolutely in favour of cutting benefits and social welfare, it makes you question their policy of reducing child benefit to single mothers above a certain age - how are they supposed to cope, if a working couple have to give up an entire salary as childcare costs are too much??

Average-runner......grads may be asking for ridiculous salaries, but why don't you offer them the jobs anyway with the lower salary? If a grad manages to get 4 interviews, and 3 jobs offers with salaries much lower than what they expect, maybe it would get across to them that they're just going to have to accept that salaries are not like that any more, and take the 4th job?? Why not bother? (I know it's your company, not you personally, it just doesn't make much sense)

I know we definitely do not have enough jobs for all the people unemployed, and I know things are not good out there, I'm just trying to understand, particularly in the case of the so-called "unskilled" jobs, why there seems to be no impact at all on the live register figures.

donkey balls

there is another thread about this over on the work&jobs forum it's a known fact that the majority of jobs on most Irish websites dont exist:eek:.

agencies do whats known as C.V harvesting invent jobs that dont exist get people to apply in the hope that a job spec could come in sometime,i remember on a few occasions were the agency was more interested in my biz contacts/refs than interveiwing me(more than likely looking for biz leads)

as for people not wanting to work for 40k or less i dont know of any, i have taken a 15% paycut a mate of mine has taken a 50% cut, there is jobs out there in certain sectors but the employers are taking the p*ss with salaries etc for experienced/qualified people.

H. Flashman

I think if somebody really wants a job they could get something but it will most likely pay pretty bad and require them to move or travel large distances every day. The end result being they are no better off or possibly worse off then they would be on the dole. So rather than settle for a job like that people are holding out for a good job that would suit them ... and those are the ones that are few and far between.

Also as someone else mentioned tonnes of the people on the dole are from the construction sector which is really dead at the moment.

Sleepy

I'm afraid the construction sector is more than 'dead at the moment'. Short of us losing our collective heads and re-inflating the property bubble (houses are *still* over-valued imho), bull-dozing the overhang and the banks finding magic beans to grow money trees to lend from, the construction industry will never reach the levels it was at in the 00's again. Anyone from that sector finding themselves unemployed needs to re-train and find themselves a new career path. Those remaining in the sector will need to get used to the salaries being about half what they once were, the games up and the governments policies have thrown thousands of men on the scrapheap, many of them still in their prime.

Dubh Geannain

mickeyk wrote: »

Myself and my partner have two kids and both work on reasonable wages, she works part time as it wouldn't make any sense for her to work full time considering childcare costs, her family help out on the days we both work, and we rarely ever have a day when both of us are off together to do something with the kids. We earn just shy of 50k between us, from which we have to pay rent and all the usual bills that every working family has to contend with. No matter what way we work it out we would have a much higher quality of life on the dole. We would have all the time in the world to spend with the kids, rent paid for us and an income from the state. We both have skills which could be put to use in the black economy to top up our income, in fact one of us could potentially earn 300-400 pw from this. Is it any wonder some people won't take up low paid jobs? I would never even consider quitting my job to choose a career on the dole, but it is very attractive and could easily see why somebody might choose to do so, especially if you can top up the dole off the books. Hard to see the situation changing as 40-50k jobs aren't going to just appear for everybody overnight.

Anecdotal I know, but to build on your story I know of 3 fellas who claim welfare and then work in construction related activities on the black market.

They tender for jobs lowballing any genuine bids from legit contractors. They can do this because they are supplemented by the government.

Winners: guys scamming the system and the person looking to get the work done.
Losers: The Irish Taxpayer and the Legit contractor

I was told they were taking in 600 - 700 per week with this.

dan_d

I also know lads doing the same thing - though not quite to the same extent, mainly as individuals..

I've come to the conclusion that firstly, I'm totally frustrated by the whole thing, and secondly, I'm going to go find as many (useful) courses as possible and take them up. I can't sit at home every day waiting for a job to appear for me - I'm fed up and annoyed by the fact that I worked hard to get my education and worked hard for the last 5 years, and.....nothing.I'll take whatever internships I can find that might be even vaguely interesting, and hope that something comes from one of them at some stage.

Sleepy, could you not tar everyone in the construction sector with the same brush please?? I know everyone thinks of "builders" as a stereotype, but the people designing the jobs and managing a lot of them, were well-educated, very hard-working and not making millions - and were hit hard over 2 years ago now, because the unions protected your typical "builder" while the rest of us had to take the pay cuts while continuing to work 50-60 hour weeks under huge pressure. We're the ones who get stuck serious crap that nobody ever talks about - the engineers, architects, design engineers, building services etc. 35k for a 50 hour week (that's a basic week, not counting overtime etc - which we don't get paid for)....I'm afraid it wasn't a walk in the park for everyone involved!

Anyway, construction is dead, we're saturated with engineers and architects for the size of the country we are, and the only conclusion I can come to is that I'm going to have to go out there and make my own luck somehow, because there sure as hell isn't anyone running the show who either knows, or is interested, in this unemployment situation,and as far as I can see, there's a whole lot of people who are happy to sit back and take whatever they can get for minimum (or no) effort.

It's pretty maddening.

RichardAnd

Dubh Geannain wrote: »

Anecdotal I know, but to build on your story I know of 3 fellas who claim welfare and then work in construction related activities on the black market.

They tender for jobs lowballing any genuine bids from legit contractors. They can do this because they are supplemented by the government.

Winners: guys scamming the system and the person looking to get the work done.
Losers: The Irish Taxpayer and the Legit contractor

I was told they were taking in 600 - 700 per week with this.

This is a big problem in this country. I was unemployed from September last year until mid January of this year. I didn't draw the dole, rather, I fell back on my considerable musical abilities and made money from that (sessions, gigs etc). However, what amazed me is that most of my own family kept at me to draw the dole in addition to earning money from music, saying that I was "entitled" to it. I refused out right and most of them saw me as being odd for this, some even going to far as to tell me I'm crazy.

Now my family aren't scroungers or anything like it. They're hard working people yet they see no problem with me earning supplementing my income with the state's money. Quite disheartening I can tell you

donkey balls

RichardAnd wrote: »

This is a big problem in this country. I was unemployed from September last year until mid January of this year. I didn't draw the dole, rather, I fell back on my considerable musical abilities and made money from that (sessions, gigs etc). However, what amazed me is that most of my own family kept at me to draw the dole in addition to earning money from music, saying that I was "entitled" to it. I refused out right and most of them saw me as being odd for this, some even going to far as to tell me I'm crazy.

Now my family aren't scroungers or anything like it. They're hard working people yet they see no problem with me earning supplementing my income with the state's money. Quite disheartening I can tell you

i would just like to point out that just because someone is working and claiming the dole that they are abusing the system(social welfare etc) is wrong.
my friends father was put on short time last year along with the rest of his colleagues ( 3 days per week)they were entitled to claim the other days that they did not work while still paying tax&prsi on their reduced salary, i have also found myself in the same situation after years of paying 48pence in the punt and something like 6.85%prsi back in the aul days.
and for those of you who think that people have it handy on the dole they should try it themselves, im one of the lucky ones (in a way) as i have another career to fall back on at present the $$$ is crap work is not gaurenteed on a weekly basis.

dan_d

True, I've a number of friends on 3 day weeks who are also claiming.

It's those that are carrying on a trade, while claiming to be unemployed that are the bigger problem.

rumour

dan_d wrote: »

True, I've a number of friends on 3 day weeks who are also claiming.

It's those that are carrying on a trade, while claiming to be unemployed that are the bigger problem.

Dan_d,

I've read your posts through this thread and others. You seem a pretty switched on individual. Correct me if I'm wrong your still pretty young!!!

I come from a similar background, when I graduated in the early 90's there was nothing in this country especially in Civil Engineering. I remember Cavan County Council advertising some job and I nearly applied. Turned out it was counting pot holes.

Instead I left and went abroad, it was a choice that I took. I didn't do engineering to count pot holes. All of my friends at the time did the same thing. We were young and had a great time hopping around the world making connections that are still useful today.

There has been an infrastructure spend in this country because we were so far behind but even if the good times lasted the infrastructure spend would not and civil engineering jobs would not last also.

If you want to achieve in that field you should get up and go, great things are happening in China and asia, the gateway to getting there if you don't have language skills is via London. The economies of South America are booming. All these countries have infrastructure deficits that need civil engineers. The recruitment agencies in London do have genunine good positions overseas. For major Civil Engineering this will always be the case you will have to travel.

But it can be a great thing where you will learn other cultures economies and more specifically how things are done right (in some instances wrong I might add). You will be free from the shackles that drag this country and our best individuals down.

I did it for over ten years and will perhaps leave again soon. I won't wait until I'm desperate. I'll retain control of this thing and leave at my choosing. The choice is still yours.

I admire your resiliance.

http://www.hays.com/international-opps.aspx


There are more when I think of them i'll post them. The Yanks are a bit different and I did tend to stay away from them.

Haliburten and Kellog Brown and Root offered me jobs in the Andes and decomissioning bases in the Ukraine but these posts are semi danger money things.

Anyway point being there is a whole world of opportunity out there. I always looked at these opportunities with a sense of adventure. Even though I am reasonably comfortable now I will admit I am considering doing it all again. Why because its fun, I just have to convince my OH of the same.

In some respects its so much better than pondering if Ireland will ever sort itself out. Nothing short of regime change or a new republic can do this.

dan_d

Thanks rumour. I've pm'd you, rather than go into detail on a thread here..

maninasia

Sleepy wrote: »

I get your point entirely and agree with it to an extent.

That said, looking at the houses of my friends and contrasting them with the houses we all grew up in during the 80's (before they were all extensively redecorated by our parents over the past decade or two) I think it's fair to say that for the most part there has been a 'quality of life benefit' for most in having both partners working.

In my parents day, you got your mortgage and moved into a house with a few bits of furniture and gradually, as you could afford it, re-decorated the house to suit your own taste. Nowadays a young couple move in and the place looks like an ikea catelogue a month or two after.

The "Quality of Life Gain" perceived by those couples is a materialistic one - they judge their quality of life to be better because they have a nice plasma screen TV and two cars in the driveway. Sure, most of it's on credit but where both partners are still in employment and can service their loans, that's not really a problem.

The other Quality of Life gain was that of freedom for women to pursue a career rather than to "just" be a stay at home mother, something that, again, didn't really exist when my mother had to leave her job with the Bank to raise myself and my siblings. Many (most?) women prefer to have the independence and job-satisfaction of paid employment.

I'd still argue that mortgage lending should never have loosened to the point where a single income family couldn't buy a 3 bedroom house in a decent area on 3/4 times the main earner's salary. In the case of dual-income families, the banks should have been forced to consider no more than 3 times the main earners income and twice the second earners (i.e. if the second earner ceased to earn, the main earner could continue to service the loan).

I agree with almost everything you have said, but not being able to stay at home and spend more time with the kids wouldn't always be considered 'quality of life'. Quality of life for children and overall family may be reduced by this situation. Anyway I think it's evening out now with all the job losses.
I live overseas and though I don't earn a massive pay packet, average Irish wage, we live very comfortably with my wife looking after the children at home...it's a nice option to have. That's because costs for everything are lower here and since women don't earn a huge amount there is no huge benefit to them working for the family unit (of course there is a benefit to the woman's career etc...but you get my point).

maninasia

average_runner wrote: »

We dont even make an offer to them once they tell us their expectations.

We actually given up interviewing grads now and so have alot of IT companies

That's very arrogant, everybody has expectations, you can deflate them and then offer them what you think is the right offer. Bad manager....