Employment confusion

[andrewducker]

When I was unemployed for about 18 months back in 1994-95 (just after graduating), I was sent on a few training courses, and put into unpaid work placements. Is this actually different to what's currently being proposed?

I'm not trying to snark - I'm actively confused as to whether this is in any way a new thing.

Comments

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

The unpaid work placement scheme is designed to do two things: one explicitly, one surreptitiously. And neither of them has anything to do with getting necessary jobs done.

The openly stated goal is to give unemployed people some work skills training, in effect: to get them used to the idea of turning up at a particular place at a particular time and doing some job with reasonable diligence. Of course, many unemployed people have plenty of experience of being employed, and so hardly need this measure. The proposals do seem to recognise this, in that these placements are supposed to be for people who have turned down other kinds of assistance, are are therefore presumed to be the terminally workshy. I mainly see this simply adding more twists to the byzantine bureaucracy of claiming benefits, to no particular benefit, but you can see how some people might think it a good idea.

The concealed goal is to smoke out people who are claiming jobseeker's allowance while working cash in hand. Obviously, having to do a four week placement will put the kibosh on whatever undeclared job the claimant is already doing - unless they stop claiming, thus removing themselves from the unemployment figures.

It's a sneaky trick, and you can see why it would be attractive to ministers and officials. This is no doubt why it has enjoyed such cross-party support - as you note above, it was a Labour policy before the coalition took it up.

Whatever the goal, at no stage is this policy about identifying work that needs to be done and then attempting to recruit staff to do it. It's about getting people to dig holes and fill them in again in order to achieve some other aim.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

There's also the reasonably explicit punitive aims (see the FT piece) - "if you don't look like you're trying hard to get a job, you get stuck in shitty workfare".