http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9579502/Wanted-one-au-pair.-Result-2000-applications.html
Wanted: one au pair. Result: 2,000 applications
When Rosie Murray-West advertised for a home help last month, nothing prepared her for the mountain of letters from desperate youngsters pleading for work – mainly from Spain. It didn’t take her long to discover why.
Sleeping in our spare room in return for looking after two small girls is a dubious privilege, which is why I had always assumed that recruiting our first au pair would be a struggle. Two thousand applications later and I’m praying that we’ve hit upon the right person.
It has been a month since I put up an advertisement on the popular website Au Pair World, stating that we wanted someone to look after a five- and a three- year-old for two afternoons a week with some light cleaning thrown in. I was clear – discouraging even – about where we live and what we can offer. Despite this, the letters and emails poured in.
Perhaps I was giving them the wrong idea. Instead of the angelic photo I put up of the girls in their bridesmaid dresses, I should have uploaded a more realistic one of Daisy having a post-school tantrum on the kitchen floor.
Even with the bridesmaid dresses, our proposal looks pitiful. We live in an unfashionable part of south-east London and are offering a shared bathroom and pocket money for which the local youths would not get out of bed. Living “on a par” (as the phrase “au pair” translates) with us is not the sort of offer that would normally get one person racing to press the “Send” button, let alone thousands.
I’m under no illusion. It’s not the quality of our family home but the “pain in Spain” that has meant that we are suddenly awash with applicants. More than 80 per cent of them are Iberian and of the rest, most are Italian, French or other countries in the eurozone whose names are frequently suffixed with the words “debt crisis”.
Most of the candidates’ profiles begin brightly enough: “I love the children’s, they are the future.” Then they trail off into quiet desperation: “The economic situation is such, there is nothing for me here”; “There are no jobs. I must have the English.” Some are brutally honest: “I could look after your children while I look around for a real job.”
Most send photos of themselves engaged in wholesome activities with baffled-looking children, or posing mournfully beneath national landmarks. They are hugely, sometimes comically, overqualified. Do I want a pastry chef, a swimming instructor or a primary schoolteacher? They want to teach my children Spanish, chess and balloon modelling – possibly all at once.
None of them fits the traditional stereotype of the au pair – someone in their late teens who will turn up puffy-eyed in the morning to take care of the children while nursing a hangover. Many of the applicants are better qualified than me – a whole generation whose careers are on hold until the economy improves.
And even though we have chosen someone, still the applications come rolling in. The Au Pair World website promises that it will stop showing our profile to new applicants if we don’t reply to the flood of messages. Yet I now have more than 1,000 unread applications and more are arriving every day. I can’t keep up with opening the emails, let alone replying. Even when I do find time to turn them down, the applicants email me again asking if I have any friends who might consider employing them. Rather than a process of hiring child care, it is beginning to feel like that game where you whack moles with a mallet and they keep popping up again.
My husband, Paul, allows pity to overtake common sense: “Do you think we could employ them in shifts?” He then bans me from interviewing any men who send pictures of themselves in their swimming trunks, which at least cuts down the numbers. The calibre of the applicants is so high that I’m wondering whether I will find it easier to ask someone a little younger and less academically qualified to pick Daisy and Clover’s clothes off the bedroom floor.
I didn’t have to look far to discover why we received so many applications. The fastest-growing group of foreign workers in the UK is the Spanish, while in Spain half the young people are unemployed. Even where they do have jobs, a third of them are on so-called “junk contracts”, which give them no job security and few benefits.
The situation is causing riots, as reported last week, and a mass exodus. Spain’s National Statistics Institute expects more than 500,000 people to leave the country each year until 2020 if demographic trends continue. Some think these youngsters will never return.
José Ramón Pin Arboledas, a professor at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) business school at the University of Navarra, fears that if they stay away for too long Spain will lose its investment in their education as they find more permanent work in the UK or other European countries.
“The young people that go to work in the UK as au pairs usually go to learn English, and after that they come back to continue their education or look for a job in Spain,” he says. “But as unemployment among young people is now more than 45 per cent [the comparable figure in the UK is 22 per cent], it is possible that they will stay more than the time necessary to learn the language.”
Gayle Allard, a professor of managerial economics at the IE (Instituto de Empresa) Business School in Madrid, is more upbeat, believing that the current diaspora could have advantages in the long run. “Clearly, Spain needs its highly skilled young people. But these young people are very likely to come back with languages and experience that will benefit the country,” she says. She believes the economic exiles will return, because “Spaniards are passionate about their country”.
The need to learn English is a problem echoed by many candidates we talk to, particularly those who are qualified teachers. Carlos tells me that, although he has passed all the exams, the local schools demand that he is bilingual in English and Spanish. If not, he won’t get a job. Our schedule would allow him to take the English classes he needs, he explains. If he stays in Spain he knows that he has no chance of a teaching post. The Spanish government will only employ teaching graduates whose names are on a certain list. That list is closed and he is not on it.
Jackie Gallacher, a director of the Millennium au pair agency, says that the mix of nationalities of au pairs on her books has switched completely over the past two years. “It used to be that most au pairs were from Eastern Europe,” she said. “Now most are from Western Europe.”
The largest proportion of girls on her books are Spanish – 16 out of 46 at present, and the type of girl applying has changed as well: “They are graduates,” she continues. “And they are more mature than previously – up to 29 or so.”
I’m not the only mother reeling from the avalanche of applicants. Mothers I meet at the school gate tell me they have had thousands of applicants for similar jobs. Like me, they have chosen to employ an au pair rather than a nanny partly because it is cheaper (see box below). One of my friends started weeding them out by asking outright if they had an eating disorder: “If they can’t cope with me being blunt then they aren’t right for us,” she reasons.
More traditional nannies, too, are being affected by the influx of cheap child care, which is having a knock-on effect. Instead of being wooed with cars and gym memberships, or poached from rivals as was the norm a decade ago, they are having to advertise heavily to get any job at all.
On the East Dulwich internet forum, where south-east London’s yummy mummies look for child care, the moderator has placed a firm message: “In recent weeks this board has been flooded by nannies advertising their services. However, it is not OK to post daily looking for a job.” But still the torrent of advertisements continues.
Child care may be a buyer’s market at present, but that hasn’t made picking the right person any easier. After reading many, many applications and ignoring any that arrived after a two week cut-off period, we chose the au pair for us. She’s 27, and will be with us in a matter of weeks. The girls can’t wait.
Maria Del Mar Sainz, who is “lucky” enough to be joining us in a fortnight, tells me why she is coming. “We are a well-educated generation but we don’t have a future currently in Spain,” she says.
Maria, who is finishing her degree in Hispanic studies and who has already lived in London for a year as part of her degree course, is from Valencia. She tells me that 28,000 people are on the waiting list for the Valencia language school alone because they know that they need English to get any job.
“If you like kids and have experience, it’s best to work as an au pair,” she concludes. “I have several friends who are seeking families, and many others that surely will.”
As for whether we’ve made the right decision for our family, we will just have to wait and see. I’ve already told Maria she’s one in a thousand. I’m hoping she’s one in a million, too.
Child care: the options
The cost of nannies and nurseries has risen ahead of the rate of inflation for years, and hiring a nanny is generally the most expensive option of all. When you take on a nanny you become an employer and so are obliged to pay income tax, National Insurance, sick pay and maternity pay on top of a salary. Further, your home insurance should include Employer’s and Public Liability cover, to protect you if your nanny suffers an injury or has an accident while working in your home.
• The average gross annual salary of a live-in nanny in central London is currently £26,870; in Greater London and the South East it is £28,713; and £25,877 elsewhere, according to the Nursery World salary survey 2011. But there are additional hidden costs — heating, electricity, phone bills, often a car or travel expenses and food.
• Live-out nannies, with their own rent and bills to pay, require even higher salaries. The current average is £34,516 in central London, £28,713 in Greater London and the South East. Elsewhere the cost is lower at £25,877.
• Importantly, if you find your nanny through an agency, they will have done some vetting and accumulated checks and references.
• Tinies (tinies.com) has the most nanny agency branches across the UK, and websites such as nannyjob.co.uk can recommend the top agencies in your area. Alternatively, if you would prefer to recruit your nanny privately, adverts for nannies and au pairs can be placed on websites such as Gumtree and The Lady (lady.co.uk/home/classifieds).
• Au pairs are cheaper, but the quid pro quo is that you treat them as you would a member of your family. They may lack formal child care qualifications, are typically younger and only work up to 25 hours a week plus two nights of babysitting. A salary is replaced by board, lodging and an allowance, a minimum of £65-£70 a week as recommended by the Home Office (compared with the £600 of some live-in nannies). Because an au pair lives with you, the minimum wage law does not apply.
• The British Au Pair Agencies Association (bapaa.org.uk) is Britain’s only recognised trade association for au pairs and sets the business and ethical standards for its member agencies, which can be found online.
• Parents who work regular hours and opt for day nurseries will find costs also vary according to region and age of the child, with those under two costing significantly more. The Daycare Trust found that in 2012 the most expensive nursery charges £300 a week for part-time care (25 hours a week) — £15,000 a year. However, the lack of flexibility means day care is not an option for many parents.
• Another option is a childminder, who cares for children in her own home. Self-employed, she is responsible for her own tax, maternity rights and insurance.
Natalie Gil
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