Are they personalised and do they stand out?

So many people send us blanket letters (sometimes unsigned) that they've sent to loads of people. They often contain basic errors in spelling, etc. They create an awful impression. I doubt yours are like that but I can honestly say the majority I've seen over the years are like that. What is really laughable is that when they are suited to the job because of their attention to detail and then make 6 low-grade spelling errors, get the name of your firm wrong (sometimes not updated from the the previous application), etc, etc.

What sort of thing are you looking for?

Maxwell's demise is given as 5 November. Just a day or so after, I was invited to late bonfire organised by Mirror employees where they burnt an effigy of the nasty piece of work himself. It was a good evening.

We know. You post from them all the time.

Not a waste of space necessarily. Just a company making strategic decisions to try to secure its future. They may have other research facilities around the world and want to cut duplication. They may have decided to move the company in a whole new direction before their revenues dry up from Lipitor, etc. If such companies just carry on as they've done before they go bust, however big they may seem (remember the British shipbuilders, motorbike makers, car makers, white goods manufacturers, etc) and then there's less jobs still.

There are actually a lot of manufacturing businesses out there and a lot of them are exporting their products because their expertise and quality of work is so good.

But admittedly there aren't as many as there used to be and for one simple reason - we deliberately got poorer economies to do the manufacturing work for us.

My uncle was a highly skilled engineer working with high temperature alloys, they milled turbine blades for Rolls Royce for instance and in Leeds we had a reputation for skilled engineering and finishing work, but back in the 1960s when I was a kid the words "Made in Hong Kong" or "Made in Taiwan" were always prefixed by the phrase "poop from" instead of "Made in" because that was the generally held view and there was a pride in the engineering products that we produced and they were in demand all over the world.

Two things happened though, the "poop" producers in the far east got their acts together and the end users in this country focused on their cheap prices rather than backing the British product - ask anyone of my vintage how Datsun cars were first spoken of and then within a few short years how they had turned it around and suddenly British Leyland cars were the laughing stock and you really wanted a Datsun for its reliability and free radio.

Its true that you can't cope with low wage rate economies but at one point in the early 1970s we, as a country, threw our hands up and declared, "aw fook it, let the asians work for rice and sell it to me cheap"

Yes.

My wife works in personel, It is adapted to every single person and company I send to with personal names and addresses.

Anything and everything so please stop telling me there are jobs because there are not.
All you are doing is making yourself sound like a clueless prize pillock.

presumably she can spell it?

there are jobs, plenty of them, just people aren't prepared to change their wage demands and change location, much better to bleat on the internet all day.

Have you tried any of the agencies ?

The company I work for can't keep up with the demand for our product from most of the large staff agencies in the UK, I know its not secure work etc etc but they seem to be booming at the moment and there is a sneaky feeling that they are sucking away all of the genuine job opportunities for temporary placements.

There are jobs, certainly in SE England. My son has worked in a supermarket for a couple of years and is due to take up a professional career in January. His girlfriend has a job. He helped get his mate a job where he currently works. I had an email from a youngish chap this morning saying he's handed in his notice and is moving to a firm closer to home.They are examples just from very direct recent personal experience.

but that is the thing, the majority of the perpetually unemployed think they should be able to get a job just around the corner from their house, on hours to suit them at a minimum of £22k a year

it's time we removed benefits for those that can work but wont, and give the money saved to those that would work but genuinelt cant.