General Chat

I think this is what was 'secretly' let slip by a member of JC staff when a friend had to register for JSA recently ( firm lost contract and had to let everyone go so no fault of friend) Friend was told basically that they were "doing all the right things to find work" but that "things are soon going to get tougher".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2434182/Now-work-benefits-Ministers-unveil-tough-crackdown-payments-jobless.html

There is some debate as to whether it will or should t the long term unemployed with mental or physical health problems, but it seems from a quick read that will be geared towards the under 25s and "older jobseekers who have been out of work for at least six months."

I declare an interest in the "older jobseeker" bit, given that I may be one of them... Now whilst I don't have a particular objection to learning a new skill etc, I do object to being cheap labour to firms who may otherwise have to employ staff at full wage, and I also object to the possibility that some jumped up little idiot at the job centre may insist I do work that I am not fitted to do ( I KNOW in my bones that "caring" jobs will be high on the list as that is where the shortfall is...and of course "anyone can do it! " :-P )

Well, I couldn't do a caring job. I would tell my patients where to go and get sacked on first day probably.

A prison warder, or a parking warden, or a TV license detection officer - now that would suit my skills, personality and charm. Must see what JC has for me.

My retired bil was a carer. Used to do night shift for social services in a large city in north west England (must not speke its name). Had an enormous amount of training and education to become a senior social worker. And he used to take children off their mothers in the middle of the night. But he did have a much greater level of inter-personal skill than me.

A tricky subject as there can't possibly be a 'one size fits all' solution.

In theory, it could give the able bodied a feeling of self worth if they can (re)develop the work ethic. Yes - there is the danger that unscrupulous employers will replace one their paid positions with a series of trainees.

I'd like to see training courses linked to work experience, with charitable or community work included in the other options. One comment on the thread was that the hours 'worked' at minimum wage should equal the JSA being claimed.

If a JS is 'working' full time they don't have the opportunity to seek a permanent position. This was an argument I had by phone with an Advisor when OH at the age of 58 was claiming JSA. He was a Jury Member on a 4 week murder trial, out of the house for 8-9 hours a day. They still insisted that he sought work via the media when he got home after a day listening to harrowing evidence!

In the Express it states the work will be "full time" so that's at least 30 hours? for the £56.80 (under 25) or £71.70 JSA ...now aside from travel costs and clothing costs having to come out of that, who exactly is going to provide this work/training?

As it is the 'retraining' you can get is very limited, a few weeks at most.

I have nothing against people, "Long term unemployed" working in order to continue to receive there benefits but it should not be working for companies in the private sector, If they need staff then they should pay a living wage to anyone working for them, We are already subsidising big business through tax credits paid to there employees.

If people are to work in order to receive benefits then it should be work for the good of the local community

Roy

No doubt this will allow that comedy duo Cameron and Osborne to stand at the Dispatch Box and proclaim loudly that they have increased the number of people in work and reduced the number of people counted as officially unemployed - or am I being cynical ;-)

A Fair days pay for a fair days work.

How on earth are you meant to even look for a job if you are working essentially for free????

What has happened now is the the Minimum wage which was meant to help those on the lowest income, has now become the main wage per hour that most companies now employ people at. So instead of raising standards of pay it has actually lowered them.

This government with this scheme is again pandering to middle englanders who believe that all those on the dole are lazy and do not want to work.

I despair....

The so called deficit must have been manna from heaven for David Cameron and George Osborne, just what they wanted, something they could blame everyone for except the bankers and the rich city elite. They could use this opportunity to implement their long held ideological policies of dismantling the welfare state and thereby widening the gap between the rich and the poor and do this by whipping up divisions across society by branding everyone on benefits, especially the unemployed as all being beer swilling scroungers.

Surely if those on unemployment benefit are 'set to' to do unpaid jobs, this will mean there are fewer 'paid' (and I use the term loosely) jobs for the unemployed to apply for......

Thereby creating a convenient, ever increasing, 'underclass' of the unemployed, who can't get paid jobs because they're being done by the unemployed....

Am I the only one who thinks, yet again (on top of the bedroom tax) this fascistic 'idealistic' thought, turned into policy, hasn't actually been thought through..?

It seems to me that if people are working for the dole, then they are no longer unemployed, therefore they should no longer be on the dole. That is how my mind works, anyway.

This is what is worrying me abit. We have been hearing for years and I do mean years from different governments about making able bodied people work for their dole money. Ok sort of stop the moaning about benefits culture which in some families is now in the 3rd generation but like Roses friend who for no fault of their own ending up having to sign on could be for the 1st time in over 30 yrs. There are few jobs now adays with perm contacts most offer zero hours like Rose I too am concerned about the slave labour. What about women or men that have taken a career break to bring up their children for 5 yrs, I have a very good friend who by the time it came for to consider returning to work, she had lost her confidence, she did manage to find work but would the JCP accept this?

I am a child of the 80's and left school before i should of done worked 40 hours for £44.00 a week which at the time was excellent wage, 6 months later the contract finished I was layed off and only option left for me was to GTS for £25.00 even as a 16yrs it annoyed me that I was doing the same hours same work as someone earning double the amount. I was the second year of the GYTS so at least they had been looked at again, so employers knew they had a responibility to actually train me with new skills and have a pretty dam good reason to lay me off after 12 mths to take on the next guliable 16yr school leaver.

I have never been scared of work and will freely tell you at whilst my children were young I had at times 3 jobs part time cleaning or bar jobs working around my OH shifts, there was none of this expecting employers to consider my childcare I sorted that out before I applied for the job. Like most I dont think I would apply to be a carer and do our eldly deserved to be cared for by someone who is doing so reluntently just so they get their dole money? Will they provide the care that you would expect for your elderly parent?

By making people work for their dole, the government /businesses are basically paying people extremely low wages, which will ensure other wages (below management) don't need to increase.
After all, why employ someone on a 'proper' wage when they can get cheap labour from the unemployed, and businesses can get money from the government to use 'apprentices', who will get just over £7000 a year 'wages', then be released after a year, to be unemployed, and then work for even less!

Well done Clegg & Cameron. We know where you stand - on Joe Average.

Getting people stuck on benefits and bored stiff to do some sort of work is not a bad idea. Getting them to work for nothing is not and as Ms Winchester says could just drive down wages even further for many others.

IF the intention is to get job seekers more active and improve their chances of getting paid unemployment then (a) the expense of getting to/from should be covered as people on JSA often have very tight budgets (b) it should not exceed 16/20 hrs a week (c) the work should be such as to improve job prospects, not the C21 equivalent of workhouse stone breaking and (d) in order to prevent abuse the work should only be in the voluntary sector.

IF it is possible to find real work for a JSA person then I would have thought it obvious that this should be paid at the usual rate, job done no longer unemployed.

Forcing people to do such things as push trolleys around for supermarkets is nonsense. So is using JSA people to do free work where it would normally be paid.

But this idea is nothing new.


It has happened in the 1930'/1940's and the wages were smaller then.

Then a man had to work to keep his family even it was only sweeping the streets or clearing the snow.

it it was under different governments.
So why the hullaballoo that it has been suggested now.

Some people have short memories.

EDIT,


http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1930-depression.htm

Have a look at this from the NA.

Probably about 20 odd years ago there was a scheme where JS could work for a charity (part time) and be given an extra £10 pw. Is that still about? If not, it might be an option.

The charity benefits and the JS volunteer gains self respect whilst brushing up on their skills.

I actually think the government means well * ducks* as before, this has happened to scare the signing on and working cash in hand culture and has never been very
successful

Sue, a pertinent paragraph from the NA item is:

"The UAB set up training schemes and provided help to workers who wanted to move to another area to find work. Older unemployed men were sometimes given allotments to grow vegetables or raise poultry and rabbits. Society went some way towards accepting that unemployment was not a failing of the people, dispelling the notion that the poor could work if they really wanted to."

This government is demonising the unemployed, offering them no actual help - not jobs with proper pay, nor opportunities to move elsewhere, just looking at them as a means for cheap labour and scum who need to 'get off their ar*es'. This is also opportunity to crow about the 'number of unemployed falling', when in reality the unemployed are still unemployed and the only people who gain are owners of businesses!

I thank you all for your replies, I've tried several times to write something but deleted it all lol, it was too much of a rant ;-)

I will just agree with the general sentiment that in some ways it could be a 'good idea'...but that it hasn't been thought through properly ( if at all!) and that if I trusted the motives of IDS I would hang myself now for a fool :-)

My husband & I have supported ourselves all of our working lives, arranging our own childcare when needed. When my children were small, like Hayley I worked round my husband’s work hours. Some of these jobs were for low pay & not using my qualifications, but some money was better than none. My one luxury was a jar of coffee, but often the money for this was spent on bread & spread.
We brought our children up to understand that you have to work for things you need or want. Pocket money (when there was any to spare) was earned by doing small jobs around the house.

It does bother me that anyone should be expected to work for less than the minimum wage per hour, but having said this, surely if there is a job for them to do, they are no longer unemployed.

There are things that the unemployed could do in their communities rather than being taken on as cheap labour.

Helping out in drop in centres, charity shops
Tidying churchyards, beaches

£7,000 a year whilst an apprentice seems a fair wage, many companies do go on to integrate 'their apprentices' into their main workforce if they have openings, as they are fully knowledgeable in the way the company works.

Clegg & Cameron may not be getting everything right but something does need to be done to get this country working as one.
At the moment the country is much divided.
There are the highly paid executives, the well off workers, a large amount of hard working people, the job seekers, the idle unemployed, the unemployable, the disabled & the pensioners. The pensioners are a mixture of people who earned enough whilst working to have a private pension/save, those who just managed to live & pay off a mortgage & those who just survived in rented accommodation. I may have missed a few.
I come under the ‘just managed to live & pay off a mortgage’.

It's not the principle as such that is at fault, it is the practical application.

IDS can't do 'Practical' nor can Cameron...let's face this is a man who can't even work out you need to take either a longer T Shirt or a bigger towel to the beach ;-)