From October 1st restaurants will no longer be able to pay staff less than the minimum wage, topping up their salary to a fair ammount with tips. Good. Well, good for staff, but the increase in wages and national insurance will mean an extra £60m having to be found throughout the industry. Realistically some restaurants will make staff cuts - one person per restaurant is the claim. Nothing in the new rules states that tips should still be shared by staff, so if you’re going for a filler post as a waiter or waitress, make sure you are clear on how you will be getting paid. If the restaurant is now paying you minimum wage but keeping your tips for themselves, then it will be a lot of work at unsociable hours for very little. And if you are there: ask the customer for a cash tip and pocket it. Done!

Tags: Working in food and drink

On the whole, women don’t get paid as much as men. That’s why men tend to pay for dinner and home insurance. A new report suggests that is continued gender stereotyping in schools career advice that has kept rather than closed the gap. School Career Advice tends to lead female students into the “five c” - caring, cashiering, clerical, cleaning and catering - where pay levels tend to be lower. If you ask me, everyone needs to grow some balls: girls, don’t accept the five “c’sâ€� – look for work experience in non-traditional sectors where employers will be looking for a more diverse workforce; look for buddy programmes on placements and apprenticeships; and challenge your careers advisor.  After all, if Fred Goodwin was a woman, would we be in this mess, sisters?!

Tags: graduate salaries, Women in work, women pay

So, if you didn’t know that you need work experience to land a job this summer, good luck sweeping the streets. The question is, at what cost do you get that experience? To be fair, arch-homosexual and journalist Johann Hari has been bleating for a while about how unfair work experience is as, often being unpaid, it favours those whose mummy and daddy can supplement the pocket money. 66% of young people feel obliged to work for free because of the recession – leaving them feeling exploited and underpaid. Be realistic: two weeks is about the limit for unpaid work, 4 weeks in the media. If the employer is trying to get more out of you than that, they are taking the piss: decline after two weeks and walk away – its still all on your CV. Make them understand that your own debts are huge, any business worth its salt will help you out. All you want is train and beer money after all (about £80 a day). AS listed on Onrec, the NCWE’s tips to help students and graduates avoid exploitation: • Discuss the purpose of the internship and clarify expectations from the start • Ensure the placement is valuable – does it give insight into a particular industry? Will it improve certain skills or clarify career aspirations? • Discuss the possibilities of any future paid work with employer, pointing out the skills that you have gained during the internship. • Re-consider the value of the internship if it ceases to supply useful contacts and training opportunities • Everyone has a choice and if the balance between valuable work experience tips into exploitation then it is up to you to decide whether to continue or not

Tags: getting paid for work experience, Work Experience, Work placements

British Airways may be getting a little carried away with their own popularity.  We’ve all had good appraisals or an interest staff party, but never in all my years as an international business man and chief career advisor at Here Comes The Boss have I, Hanson St. Hansan-Hansen, seen anything like this.  Good old BA are inviting their employees to come and work for free!  I tried the same in the office this morning and have only just managed to get the staff back in their cages. Work for free? Surely not!  Well that’s what Willie Walsh is asking of his staff.  After recording a record loss of £401million, he’s taking this drastic step in order to try and right the ship – or plane in this case.  Amazingly 1,000 of BA’s 40,000 staff have agreed.  It’s not quite as bad as it all sounds when Willie breaks it down, staff will still be paid but however many days they opt to work for free will be deducted across their yearly pay.  Willie was the first in line, by giving up his pay for July.  If you still fancy working in the travel industry hit these videos

Tags: BA, British Airways, Pay, Recession

It’s surveys and reports galore over at Here Comes The Boss Towers, but one in particular caught my eye this morning from InterviewGold.com a skills training website.  They sent some of their staff out with clipboards and the results they’ve come back with are quite surprising.  It would seem that the credit crunch, the recession and the moons gravitational pull are making job seekers crazy an it’s thought that 44% would take a salary cut in order to land a job and if this doesn’t work 28% of job hunters are prepared to change careers altogether. Good old Joe McDermott the head skill trainer over at InterviewGold decided to get his people on the streets with clipboards following a story in the Telegraph which claimed a £14,000 bin man’s job had received 238 applications.  It’s thought, among candidates, that applying for jobs they are over qualified for is a sure fire way to get it, but unfortunately it’s not the case.  Employers are still reluctant to employ over qualified staff as they’re live in the fear you’ll be up and off as soon as something better comes your way.

Tags: job hunters, pay cut, Recruitment, wages