Jobs galore! West Berkshire Council has 360 vacancies

West Berkshire Council has 360 vacancies on its books.

That’s around a fifth of its total workforce of 1,537.

In the past year, 219 people have started working at the council, but 190 left.

But the council employees stay on average for seven years and seven months before moving on.

Nearly a third of new council employees are aged between 25 and 34, with the smallest percentage over 55.

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Most people working for the council are women.

In the second half of 2023/2024 there was an increase of 20 per cent in permanent posts being filled in Children & Adults Social Care roles vs the first half of the year, with a 30 per cent increase in permanent social work qualified posts being filled.

Employees are taking around 10 days off sick a year. And sickness absence due to mental health had risen to 36.2 per cent from 24.1 per cent in the previous year.

The council says this is part of a national trend and that this was partially due to people getting frustrated because of waiting lists to access NHS services and getting less support.

Stress related absence was not necessarily work-related and this area of sickness absence could stem from people suffering with Covid and long Covid.

Nationally, the number of working days lost because of sickness or injury was an estimated 185.6 million in 2022, a new record high according to the Office for National Statistics.

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This represents an increase of 35.8 million from 2021 and 47.4 million more than its pre-pandemic 2019 level.

While the number of working days lost was a record high in 2022, days lost per worker was not, as the total number of workers in the UK has risen since the 1990s. The number of days lost per worker was 5.7 days in 2022.