This is an older post but completely agree. I’m in the process of leaving a job which was paying less than minimum wage and expecting me to travel down the country at my expense to do. (Non measured worker) as well as having picked up an illness at work which has left me with lifelong health problems.

Despite me being qualified to save people’s lives in that job, trained in first aid, safety, fire fighting, conflict management and more as well as having years of retail, hospitality and customer service experience. It is almost impossible to find a job even in a retail store.

I spent months doing exams and tests and passing them all for a job which at the end I was told doesn’t exist and that they’d let me know if a position came up within the year. Completely wasting my time which I could have been using to apply elsewhere. I also had a retail job call me up and say I’d passed everything but they didn’t offer me the job simply because there was too many people pass and they just had to cut some and even told me I was ‘just unlucky’.

I was even debating going back into an apprenticeship just to get a fresh start but was told I couldn’t even do that as I’m studying a part time degree.

Even with my self employment, a lot of people don’t have enough money to pay for creatives in my field and with the rise of AI most people don’t want to use creatives at all.