# Bricklayers needed...



## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

...but in the UK and especially in London
BBC News - Foreign bricklayers 'on £1,000-a-week amid skill gap'


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

Pesky Wesky said:


> ...but in the UK and especially in London
> BBC News - Foreign bricklayers 'on £1,000-a-week amid skill gap'


Brickies can't afford to stay in London, though, even on £1000/ wk........


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

brocher said:


> Brickies can't afford to stay in London, though, even on £1000/ wk........


Well, I heard an interview on the radio this morning (La Ser or RNE) and the interviewer asked if it was a living wage and the person in London thought it was - just ie living in a rented shared house etc.
Certainly to a Spaniard it *sounds* like a fortune, doesn't it?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

These things go in cycles, don't they. Back in the 1980s lots of British tradesmen had to head to countries like Germany and live in pretty basic accommodation to get work (remember the TV programme?) and lots from the North of England had to commute to London and the South East and live in grotty B&Bs from Monday to Friday.

We met a young Spanish friend of ours yesterday when he stopped his car to give us a lift. He's not a bricklayer but trained to be a physical education teacher and had found it very difficult to get work here apart from temporary summer jobs and a couple of stints in local gyms where the owners didn't pay him or wanted to pay less than the agreed amount. He went to London a few months ago and got a job as a waiter in an offshoot of The Ivy restaurant in Covent Garden, but after only a month he got a call offering him a "proper" job at the newly opened public swimming pool and leisure centre in Torre del Mar, so he has come back home. He has mixed feelings about it as he loves London (finds his home town very parochial and boring by comparison!) but felt he couldn't turn the job down.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> These things go in cycles, don't they. Back in the 1980s lots of British tradesmen had to head to countries like Germany and live in pretty basic accommodation to get work (remember the TV programme?) and lots from the North of England had to commute to London and the South East and live in grotty B&Bs from Monday to Friday.
> 
> We met a young Spanish friend of ours yesterday when he stopped his car to give us a lift. He's not a bricklayer but trained to be a physical education teacher and had found it very difficult to get work here apart from temporary summer jobs and a couple of stints in local gyms where the owners didn't pay him or wanted to pay less than the agreed amount. He went to London a few months ago and got a job as a waiter in an offshoot of The Ivy restaurant in Covent Garden, but after only a month he got a call offering him a "proper" job at the newly opened public swimming pool and leisure centre in Torre del Mar, so he has come back home. He has mixed feelings about it as he loves London (finds his home town very parochial and boring by comparison!) but felt he couldn't turn the job down.


Yep, in cycles, and I think it's imperitive to keep up with these cycles. You need to know where your job area is going be it teaching, hotel work, techie type or construction... because things change more and more quickly due to economics and politics and fashions and innovation etc


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## Horlics (Sep 27, 2011)

Lots of people live in London on around 50k a year. I have family members who do.




Pesky Wesky said:


> Well, I heard an interview on the radio this morning (La Ser or RNE) and the interviewer asked if it was a living wage and the person in London thought it was - just ie living in a rented shared house etc.
> Certainly to a Spaniard it *sounds* like a fortune, doesn't it?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

There might be a few bricklayers needed closer to home next year:-

El primer proyecto de torres de pisos tras la crisis se activa en el litoral oeste . SUR.es

I don't know whether to be glad people will have the work, and that at least they're planning to build them on what is a brownfield site, or dismayed that the whole tower block construction merry go round could be starting up again.

I'm sure they won't be paid anything like 1K per week - although a local guy who has now been out of work for years did tell me he was earning €3,000 per month working in construction here during the late '90s. That must have been an absolute fortune for this area, at the time.


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## brocher (Mar 21, 2011)

Horlics said:


> Lots of people live in London on around 50k a year. I have family members who do.


These brickies certainly wouldn't be earning 50k. 

It's self employed guys who will get these rates and the contracts may only be for a few weeks, then a few weeks with no work as they look for the next contract and likely to have many weeks in the winter with no work at all.

As self employed, they will have to pay for their own van, tools, PPE, tax, NI, other insurance, do their books and won't qualify for dole between jobs.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> There might be a few bricklayers needed closer to home next year:-
> 
> El primer proyecto de torres de pisos tras la crisis se activa en el litoral oeste . SUR.es
> 
> ...


I'm seeing signs that the building is starting up again and while I wouldn't like to take anyone's job away I've got to ask "why"? We heard so much about the surpless of housing at the beginning of the crisis and as far as I understand little property has been sold since 2008, so the situation must be the same surely. A quick Google confirms this
RNE programme about empty houses from November 23rd. I only listened to the first 3.5 minutes and that was enough. 


The number of dwellings has risen 20% in ten years.
Of the 25 million houses that are registered there 3.5 million that are empty, which is 14% of the total.
Yebes in Guadalajara has more houses than inhabitants and 60% of its houses are empty
Futuro abierto - Viviendas vacías - 23/11/14, Futuro abierto - RTVE.es A la Carta

Information in English
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/nobody-gets-out-here-alive-255733.html
Quotes from above article


> In May, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy celebrated a drop of 110,000 in unemployment, which sounds like great progress until you realize the jobless rate is still 25.9 percent, youth unemployment is still a staggering 57.7 percent, young graduates are leaving in droves.


Valdeluz is in Yebes, Guadalajara


> Ormazábal bought his three-bedroom flat in Valdeluz in 2007 for $325,000—it is now worth about $135,000—and it is these plunging prices that have brought new residents to the town. Most house prices have fallen by 50 to 60 percent in the town—while the remaining developable land has fallen by 80 percent.


Vacant Homes Increase by Over 10 Percent in 10 Years | Spanish Property News

But it seems that empty housing is not only a Spanish problem, nor even European according to this photo report
9 ghost towns of the recession

So what in the world are we doing here? Are we indeed just using building as a way to occupy the population without facing the true situation?Are we burying ourselves under a mountain of houses to reel from one crisis to another steadfastly( and selfishly )refusing to accept that this way of life is truely unsustainable?
That's what it looks like to me!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

brocher said:


> These brickies certainly wouldn't be earning 50k.
> 
> It's self employed guys who will get these rates and the contracts may only be for a few weeks, then a few weeks with no work as they look for the next contract and likely to have many weeks in the winter with no work at all.
> 
> As self employed, they will have to pay for their own van, tools, PPE, tax, NI, other insurance, do their books and won't qualify for dole between jobs.


Yes, these conditions were more or less what was mentioned in the radio report I heard


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Pesky Wesky said:


> I'm seeing signs that the building is starting up again and while I wouldn't like to take anyone's job away I've got to ask "why"? We heard so much about the surpless of housing at the beginning of the crisis and as far as I understand little property has been sold since 2008, so the situation must be the same surely. A quick Google confirms this
> 
> So what in the world are we doing here? Are we indeed just using building as a way to occupy the population without facing the true situation?Are we burying ourselves under a mountain of houses to reel from one crisis to another steadfastly( and selfishly )refusing to accept that this way of life is truely unsustainable?
> That's what it looks like to me!


Figures I've seen quoted claim that the stock of unsold new build properties has been reducing - slowly - from it's peak in 2009,

El stock de viviendas se reducirá más en 2014 que en 2013 | EconomÃ­a | EL PAÃ�S

but as in the example you quoted, many of them will have been sold off at rock bottom prices and it must be terrible for those who bought at the height of the boom and are stuck with huge mortgages.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> Figures I've seen quoted claim that the stock of unsold new build properties has been reducing - slowly - from it's peak in 2009,
> 
> El stock de viviendas se reducirá más en 2014 que en 2013 | EconomÃ*a | EL PAÃ�S
> 
> but as in the example you quoted, many of them will have been sold off at rock bottom prices and it must be terrible for those who bought at the height of the boom and are stuck with huge mortgages.


Yes, I would certainly hope that statistics would improve! However, much like the unemployment figures in my previous post, the starting point is so bad that millions need to be occupied before any reall difference will be felt.
The figures in the programme come from 2011 which are the latest figures available. The programme is much more recent though, 23rd I think it was of November 2014. Also, just to add that the article in El Pais refers to new buildings and I'm not sure if the figure of 3,5million empty houses is old and new together or what exactly.


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## Expatliving (Oct 21, 2013)

As a builder and a qualified 'Brickie' I confirm that once again the BBC are trying their hardest to paint a bright picture for the need for skilled trades persons from Europe. It is, in most cases, a complete red herring. The actual 'Brickies' earning serious wedge are the top performers, basically, laying bricks at near subsonic speed.


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## Documentary (May 14, 2017)

Hi!
Does anyone of you know how the real estate situation in Guadalajara/Yebes looks right now? Is the market any more attractive for buyers than it was back in the days?

All the best


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