Employment?

[paulears]

actually - wiping somebodies arse is is not just a job component for newcomers - if the job needs it, then it can be a component for all of us at any level.

 

Your status and job content depends on many things - but mainly how useful you are. A degree is not a get out of menial job duty card. Boss looks at available staff, allocates them according to usefulness and ability to work unsupervised. A graduate can easily be the lowest of the low - even below that of somebody with no academic qualifications. That's how it works in practice.

[kerry davies]

Quite so, djw, though how many BR members have "signed on" for as little as I have for two glorious weeks in 1971 since I left school in July 1965? More to the point, now that 25% of graduates do sign on after university and a greater percentage after school/college, what does the future hold?

 

This is not something that can be avoided or is voluntary. It is precisely the same as the community service sentences handed out to burglars and muggers with one minor difference.

It is 90 hours longer!

[Ynot]

I'm going to start with a quote from the opening song from Avenue Q..

 

"What do you do with a B.A. in English?

What is my life going to be?

4 years of college, and plenty of knowledge,

Have earned me this useless degree!

I can’t pay the bills yet, ‘cause I have no skills yet,

The world is a big scary place!

But somehow I can’t shake, the feeling I might make,

A difference to the human race! "

 

Words from a comic musical, BUT seldom truer than here and now.

 

I've come across many graduates from college or uni who have done their degree just to get 'A' degree - many have absolutely NO idea what they want to do with their lives, and don't really know where to start.

Of course, there are those who go into HE with specific aims, and have tailored their course choices to fit that end game, but often they are the exception.

 

I never did uni, (I sorted out my first (and only) job at 16, and am still working for the same company) and don't have a degree therefore, but my good lady wife did - she was on course for a first, I understand (but then I came on the scene in her third year and I get the blame for her dropping to a 2:1!! :D :D)

Now, I'll probably get into hot water for saying this, but whilst she had some notion of the sort of thing she wanted to do (English main degree - journalism, or some such) when she finished, she ended up working in the transport dept of an automotive factors. Just as we were getting married, she got a job at a building society (now THAT helped with the mortgage back in 1987!!). So absolutely nothing do do with an English degree (hence our afinity with Avenue Q!!).

 

However, the degree did mean that when she decided to change life course after our kids grew older she got onto a PGCE 1 year course and bcame a teacher.

 

I have mixed views on this movement to get uni/college leavers in to SOME sort of active employment, paid or otherwise. Those with a definite career path will have their options covered I'd say, hopefully with a position with an employer sorted. Those with any sort of nouse will likely be more successful in finding gainful employment whilst they either search for their first 'proper' job or wait for a start date with their planned career.

 

I read this initiative for community service as being aimed at those who haven't a clue what they want or need to do, or are perhaps just too bone idle to do anything constructive. I also think of it as an incentive for them to actively seek something more enjoyable than a care home placement.

 

I don't really have any patience for any youngster who feels they can just sit back after uni and expect life to deliver them their dream job! Why should they be permitted to do so, and at the same time be paid by the state to waste away their time? I do firmly believe that any benefit payments should be directly linked to demonstrable efforts to secure employment, and if some voluntary work helps them to get into the work ethos then all to the good. I've found that this ethos is sadly lacking in a LOT of young uns these days. :(

 

However, I'm also FAR more concerned with the number of supposedly 'mature' benefits claimants who live off the state regardless of whether they're able to get a job - these stories in the press can't ALL be hype and propaganda!

 

Anyway, getting dangerously close to politics now.............

[brainwave-generator]

I don't see what the problem is asking people to work for their money. Perhaps earning £1.40/hour for crap work will motivate people to get off their backsides and find a job of some description - whether it's Tesco, Removals or Pizza Delivery; rather than sitting around on Facebook waiting for their ideal job to come up.

 

IME there are plenty of unemployed 18-24 year olds who are not unable to get A JOB, they're simply using JSA as a means to pay for food and beer whilst they live with their parents waiting for a job they like the sound of. If you're made to earn £1.40 for cleaning up pensioners' vomit then £7 for stacking shelves might not seem so drastically bad. I offered plenty of people Olympic work and I got declined time and time again on the grounds of it being too hard graft, the hours being anti-social or it just getting in the way of their dreams.

 

I think its fair to say that because from my mid-teens I was employed in hard, long and dull jobs, by the time I got to 18 I was well and truly motivated to MAKE a career and life for myself, rather than sit at home on the internet waiting for it to happen.

[musht]

Not normally given to quoting the Daily Wail but this article is in places interesting:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2187087/A4e-Emma-Harrison-Paying-8-6m-tax-payers-money-right-thing-do.html

 

Corrections would place are that 100%, not just majority, of A4e`s income comes from the taxpayer and the company is very far from being cleared of fraud.

 

Perhaps it is questionable wether these workfare schemes are value for money, they require very , very expensive administration.

 

It is also obvious that workfare displaces actual paid employees, care home workers just like stage technicians should be paid.

 

Replacing paid employees with workfare labour deprives the state of tax receipts and the wider economy of money circulating.

 

The reality is that there are far fewer vacancies than there is people available to fill them, creating further classes of unpaid work is not going to create opportunities or employment.

[kerry davies]

If it only were targeted at the idle Ynot, it is a blanket approach on youth. Either they are all idle (discuss?) or it is not about work and jobs.

 

As for "these stories in the press can't ALL be hype and propaganda" I am sorry to say that the DWP's own figures say that the vast majority are. (99.7% of fraud reports are incorrect, 99.5% of claimants, genuine.)

 

I think I have finally stopped the Mail printing one tale of a "scrounger" after they had repeated it four times in five years and the case is now over six years old. I have also been seeing the same linesman, running up and down the same pitch on Welsh TV for so long he should be in a trench whereas he actually died a couple of years back.

 

Musht, the fact that 7,000,000 full time jobs are desperately needed seems to escape most people. Tomorrow's People, involved with the Jubilee stewards fiasco, are even worse than A4E for admitted fraud.

[alistermorton]

Quite so, djw, though how many BR members have "signed on" for as little as I have for two glorious weeks in 1971 since I left school in July 1965?

 

Signed on when I left school in 1979 once, but never drew any benefits. So was on "the register" for about two weeks, like you. That's it.

[themadhippy]

Wont this "wonederfull idea" fall foul of the minimum wage legislation? Seem to recall grayling having to do a sharp u turn,sorry I mean a realingment of policy fairly recently over one of the back to work schemes.

[callumb]

I wish to comment on this from my experience with all this and is about to back into it all sadly. Some background, I came out of college last year (2011) where I did HNC Technical Theatre. I came out with the hope that I would get a job in one of the local hire companies while at the same time with the outlook on a job at the likes of Asda, Tesco etc.

 

I hate being on JSA and such. Its just mind numbing and boring I want to get out there make a wage and do what I want but here is the problem. There isn't enough jobs for everyone who needs one. Even when there is a job going is a employers market where they get to be very picky at who they want to hire. If there is something very small they don't like about you thats your chance of the job gone.

 

This placement thing is really really not the way forward and targets the people who want a job but are unable to. As for A4E they black mail you into doing everything they want you to do from apply to jobs that you really don't have a hope in hell to getting an interview for! Those who see it as a good thing need to take a step back and think what if I was in their shoes? I want a job but don't want to get used and abused while going out and finding one. There is a difference between volunteer work and forced labour!

 

We need to get off the idea that everyone who is on JSA is not wanting work, seeking out those who are abusing the system and kick them off, get companies to offer more job positions and then we can see people coming off benefits. The current way of "solving" the problem isn't going to solve it more put into a bigger downward spiral.

[Ynot]

Wont this "wonederfull idea" fall foul of the minimum wage legislation? Seem to recall grayling having to do a sharp u turn,sorry I mean a realingment of policy fairly recently over one of the back to work schemes.

No - because it isn't PAID work. It's community service of a type, which would be compulsory for those claiming JSA. So whilst analysing it as being an hourly 'rate' might seem justifiable it really isn't.

 

And Kerry, I'm sorry, but I disagree with you at least from my own experience. Whilst I know many people who certainly DO actuvely look for work, I've come across many who just treat the benefits system as a handout just because they can't be ar$ed to find proper employment.

 

The trouble with the DWP stats is that they're based on REPORTED fraud and will never likely catch up with the numbers who are 'getting away with it'.

[djw1981]

But then we end up with the interesting situation. We have jobs in the UK, generally. What we don;t always have are jobs which person X wants to do. If person X has general skills, but wants to work in for example sound engineering. If there are no jobs in sound engineering, to what extent should society be able to say there is a job as a tesco shelf stacker, you must take it.

[musht]

there is a job as a tesco shelf stacker, you must take it.

 

Highest peak number of vacancies recently was 450,000 vacancies available, number of registered unemployed over 2,500,000.

 

As the recent High Court `slave labour` workfare case exposed, there is very few shelf stacking jobs at Poundland ,they`re all filled with workfare bodies.

 

Will be saving Poundland a fortune, never mind no wages, no N.I. contributions etc.

Just what you pay your taxes for, free staff for Poundland?

 

If Poundland termed them as interns, opinions here would be very different and they would then be subject to minimum wage legislation at Poundland`s expense.

 

Would think Tesco have a least looked at possibilty or perhaps like Maplin`s decided the negative publicity may be unhelpful.

 

Workfare does not and cannot stimulate economic activity, so what exactly is the point of it?

[djw1981]

It was a question - to what extent should we be forcing unpaid work on the unemplyed or forcing them to take vacancies which arise.

[mark_s]

I think its disgusting you go to uni for 4-5 years learning something you want to do... getting in to debt also, and then you are forced to wipe some old guys arse. These govenrment officials dont live in the real world.... ABSOLUTE MUPPETS!!!

 

On the flip side, why should the government subsidise you while you sit on your rear end not earning any money, because you did a degree in underwater basket weaving and are surprised to find that there isn't much demand for underwater basket weavers? People shouldn't have that option just because they think that the jobs which are out there are below them.

 

A lot of graduates need to wake up to the fact that just because you go to university to study something that you want to do, doesn't mean that the job will be there when you graduate. It also doesn't mean that you have the right to sit back and wait for one to appear while being funded by everyone else! If you're astute, you'll study something which is not only interesting to you but actually in demand in the real world.

[brainwave-generator]

I think its disgusting you go to uni for 4-5 years learning something you want to do... getting in to debt also, and then you are forced to wipe some old guys arse. These govenrment officials dont live in the real world.... ABSOLUTE MUPPETS!!!

 

On the flip side, why should the government subsidise you while you sit on your rear end not earning any money, because you did a degree in underwater basket weaving and are surprised to find that there isn't much demand for underwater basket weavers? People shouldn't have that option just because they think that the jobs which are out there are below them.

 

A lot of graduates need to wake up to the fact that just because you go to university to study something that you want to do, doesn't mean that the job will be there when you graduate. It also doesn't mean that you have the right to sit back and wait for one to appear while being funded by everyone else! If you're astute, you'll study something which is not only interesting to you but actually in demand in the real world.

 

My point precisely. There is no entitlement to a job in the subject you study, people just seem to treat it that way.

 

The way it should work is that you graduate in underwater basket weaving, and then you spend a couple of months ringing up all the underwater basket companies trying to find a job. Upon having no success, you get down the Asda warehouse and see if they need pickers and packers. You pick and pack to pay the rent, keeping a casual eye on the underwater basket job scene, so that if something does pop up you can apply for it and if need be, leave Asda to start weaving baskets underwater.

 

However, grads seem to think there is some entitlement. They graduate in underwater basket weaving, spend a few months ringing around, and getting nowhere. At that point they declare that it's all the government's fault that there are no underwater basket weaving jobs, so the government shall pay them £56 a week to do nothing until an underwater basket company knocks on their door and offers them a job. Because as graduates, picking and packing in Asda would be below them - those jobs are for minions.

 

Hopefully, putting some jumped up graduates into a care home to clean up bodily fluids off the floor will kick that bad attitude into touch and remind people that there's far worse things to be doing, for far worse money, than picking and packing in Asda or washing up dishes in a hotel. And that maybe, in hindsight, choosing underwater basket weaving as a degree was not the best idea in the world because of the lack of jobs available having graduated. And they might then become useful members of society who work for a living and carefully consider their options before committing to such big things in the future; rather than the current system where we allow them to sit at home basking in "I'm-too-good-for-Tesco" glory, thinking that the whole world owes them a favour and their lack of job is entirely somebody else's problem.