Amid Staff Shortage In UK, Bosses Are Offering ‘Early Finish Fridays’ To Lure Employees

To fill open positions in the face of a persistent labour shortage, several UK firms are implementing "early finish Fridays" to attract and retain Generation Z employees.

Adzuna, an online job portal, has seen a rise in the number of opportunities that provide workers with a Friday off or reduced hours in recent months.?

In March of this year, 1,426 job postings on the site included "early finish Friday," compared to only 583 in March of 2010, when the COVID-19 outbreak radically altered the working world.?

According to information from Adzuna given to Bloomberg, the benefit is for people starting their careers and making between ?20,000 and ?40,000 ($50,000).?

Adzuna's current listings include 348 early finish Friday engineering jobs as of April 3; this trend is particularly prevalent in specific fields.

There were 207 such benefits advertised for sales positions, 156 for IT positions, and 90 for entry-level employment.

According to Adzuna's co-founder and CEO, Andrew Hunter, the move shows that workers are "demanding more" from their employers in the wake of the pandemic.?

"For jobseekers, a company offering early-finish Fridays signals that they are flexible in their attitude toward working hours and care about their employees' wellbeing - two factors of utmost importance in today's jobs market," Hunter said in an emailed statement.

Several large and medium-sized companies provide this perk to their staff.

Graduates in merchandising at the fashion supply company DCK Group enjoy early weekend starts as a reward for working there.?

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In the job posting for a contract manager, aerospace firm Raytheon Technologies Corp. emphasized this perk.

Several businesses have started trying out a four-day workweek to attract and retain employees to fill an increasing number of unfilled jobs.

Even though the terms and conditions have changed, the lack of workers in the UK has not been fixed.?

Britain is the only economy in the Group of Seven that hasn't returned to where it was before the COVID outbreak.?

There are 216,000 fewer people of working age working now than there were before the outbreak.

To get older people back to work, the UK government said in its budget last month that the lifetime limit on pension savings will be removed. The wealthiest savers in the nation stand to gain from this shift.

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The effectiveness of giving benefits in luring a younger workforce is still being discussed. You'll be doing stuff you don't enjoy at some time, as Lewis Kemp of Manchester's Lightbulb Media said on LinkedIn.?

"At some point, you'll be doing things you don't like." "Much more valuable than pizzas, holidays, and 'early finish Fridays' are a culture of trust, respect, and fair compensation."

(With agency inputs)

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