Unemployment

[Dewi9]

The Conservative Government has suggested that the unemployed should attend Jobcentres (or Unemployment Exchanges, or whatever) for 35 hours each week or they will not be entitled to benefits.

Comments in the press regarding this suggestion have pointed out some small problems - first the lack of space in the Jobcentres given the number of clients, plus the costs of travelling every day for folk in rural areas, plus what are they going to do when they are all there ?

Given that the unemployed are supposed to be searching for jobs on a 24/7 basis, my proposal would be to change the whole system to match.

That is, all Jobcentres would run a staff shift system so they stayed open 24/7, thus trebling the required number of staff and creating additional jobs - this would help reduce the huge number unemployed.

Employing long term unemployed as a priority would have an added gain in that they would know all the scams and thus be in a position to stop them at source, so to speak.

Next, I would insist that all jobseekers attend for a minimum of 70 hours per week - between the hours of 7pm and 7am. Thus giving a large proportion of the unemployed the chance of a warm place to stay overnight and thus reduce the overall cost of housing benefits.

As to working for their pittance, I am open to suggestions. Perhaps a knitting course followed by a mass 'scarf and mittens knit up' for the winter ?

David

[bilbo]

Re: Unemployment

The Tories are to be congratulated on their forward thinking.

If they did make all the unemployed attend Job Centres for 35 hours per week there would not be enough staff to deal with them. So the Job Centres would need to take on more staff, thus reducing unemployment at a stroke.

Genius!

[snaarman]

Re: Unemployment

The Government could set up large Houses where poor people are sent to Work.

As the labour would be effectively free and the costs (food and heating) more or less negligible then I'm sure the institutions could make a profit.

I'm surprised this hasn't been tried before.

[StephenL]

Re: Unemployment

The Government could set up large Houses where poor people are sent to Work.

You mean, like, a Big Hoose?

[Zuiko]

Re: Unemployment

If the unemployed are attending Job Centres every day, won't that distract them from finding work?

Actually, I don't object to the concept of the DWP finding jobs for the long-term unemployed - litter picking for example, but it should be a real job for the minimum wage, not just to continue receiving unemployment benefit. I wish they could have found me a job when I was claiming benefits, or even unpaid work experience for which I asked on several occasions.

[StephenL]

Re: Unemployment

When I was long-term unemployed about 15 years ago, even though they weren't actually paying me benefits they wouldn't let me do voluntary work as it would interfere with job seeking. I wrote a full-page article about my experience which was printed in full in the Yorkshire Post. They relented, and also 4 weeks later I got a job as a result of the article.