The chill reality of winter days that lie ahead

THE Chancellor has been warned by Britain’s business leaders that his new German-style winter scheme to cover a fifth of the wages of people who go back to work off furlough, but only part-time, won’t ultimately put a finger in the dyke in terms of job losses.

Unfortunately, the grim reality is that a tidal wave of further redundancies is on the horizon. Already, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is putting the jobless figure at more than four million.

But that figure could be dwarfed if further support for nightclubs, music venues and theatres isn’t forthcoming. None of these industries can access the wage subsidies because they’re not allowed to reopen.

With a “Hunger Games” jobs market looming, we must immediately shift our approach. The remedy is to put the worker first in terms of government grant funding, rather than employer first.

The Government’s Kickstart scheme to provide employers with £5,000 grant funding if they take on a bulk-buy of 30 young people is putting money in the wrong area.

That’s still £25,000 that has to be found

‘Job-for-life security is well and truly gone’

for a £30,000 salary for a cash-strapped company to find when the job doesn’t exist any more. The £5,000 would be better spent investing it in the new entrepreneurial selfemployed individual to set up in business on their own and reskill themselves for the digital economy.

The security of the job for life is well and truly gone, as zero-hours contracts put workers permanently on high alert.

Spread betting income streams across a handful of clients as a self-employed worker in many ways will become the new normal in the workplace, rather than relying on just one employer to cover all your bills. Workers will need to remain nimble, agile and very focused on key goals and objectives to survive and thrive.

The pandemic has simply fast-tracked our shift towards the “digital first” gig economy. This was happening anyway.

The young 22-year-old fresh out of university, or the 55-year-old redundant factory worker equally need to take the bull by the horns and operate as “Me Inc”.

With my entrepreneurial roots in the recruitment sector, I can see that equipping yourself for the jobs market is now all about reskilling yourself for the digital economy, and sharpening your pencil in terms of becoming selfemployed, then onboarding a number of clients rather than holding out for the golden ticket of a job for life from a single employer ever again.