Unemployed to work for benefit

[David Johnson]

Well for a start according to the Office of National Statistics there are 3 million workers who are underemployed and want more work in the UK. They desperately want to move away from zero hours contracts, for example.

Secondly job seekers allowance is non-means tested. However, after six months income benefit is available but only to those who have less than a certain amount of savings. As a result there is a significant number of people who do not appear on the unemployed figures but who are looking for work.

Put these figures together and that adds even more weight to Sparky's overriding argument that there are far, far more people looking for work than there are jobs.

[David Johnson]

"And unable to answer the rest of my points?"

!laugh! !laugh! !laugh!

[dave756]

OK I had read somewhere 2 years but even at 1 year of being on benefits it is time to ask the question 'why aren't you working?' why haven't you at least found some form of work, part time or temporary work etc. And more importantly why hasn't the current system dealt with these people properly, what are they doing down at Jobcentre Plus!

I also think the system is stacked against anyone on benefits wishing to take on short time/temp work and it is this problem a long with too much of an easy ride for many that needs dealing with but in a manner that works and I doubt anyway it is really such a big problem that current government likes to make it out to be.

[Essex Lad]

David Johnson wrote:

> Well for a start according to the Office of National Statistics
> there are 3 million workers who are underemployed and want more
> work in the UK. They desperately want to move away from zero
> hours contracts, for example.

How would you define underemployed? Most people would want more work ? I certainly do. It is not just so-called sweat shops that use zero hours contracts. Every casual on a British newspaper is on a zero hours contract and your favourite rag The Guardian insists that after ten months all casuals take a month off so that they are unable to gain full workers' rights. So much for socialists trying to help everyone...
>
> Secondly job seekers allowance is non-means tested. However,
> after six months income benefit is available but only to those
> who have less than a certain amount of savings. As a result
> there is a significant number of people who do not appear on
> the unemployed figures but who are looking for work.

Successive governments have massaged the unemployment figures including putting people onto sickness benefits so that they do not appear; school leavers ? the infamous Neets, etc.
>
> Put these figures together and that adds even more weight to
> Sparky's overriding argument that there are far, far more
> people looking for work than there are jobs.

He said that are 2,500,000 more people than jobs. That simply is not true. I get daily emails listing scores of jobs available in the media. I went into my local Job Centre a few months ago to see what was available and there were hundreds of jobs ? some paid minimum wage, a few paid a good salary and some you wouldn't want your worst enemy to do such as a parking enforcement officer ? what we used to call a traffic warden. A job you'd love I'm sure... But to say that are 2,500,000 more people than jobs available is utter nonsense.

>
>

[Essex Lad]

Gentleman wrote:

> Those jobs on offer they include part time, zero hour contract
> also bear in mind the definition of full time employment for
> job centre purposes is 16 hours or more.

Yes, some jobs are unattractive but that doesn't mean that they are not there.

>
> Also it's not just the registered unemployed who compete for
> these jobs but those in work currently, immigrants etc.. So
> these countless jobs available for One and all don't exist.

I didn't say that they did ? I said that the idea that there are 2,500,000 more people than jobs available is not true. In addition, there are people like the one I mentioned who DJ chose to ignore who find it difficult to get work.

[David Johnson]

"But to say that are 2,500,000 more people than jobs available is utter nonsense."

You have done nothing whatsoever to support the above claim.

1. Sparky stated "There are approx 2.5 million fewer jobs than people seeking one"

2. People "seeking jobs" is going to be made up of people who are:

a. Regarded as unemployed i.e. signing on and we know there are 2.49 million of those according to government figures.

b. People who are "underemployed" in that they want more work than the zero hours contracts and part-time jobs that they have. The ONS state that there are approximately 3 million people that are "underemployed" and "seeking jobs" which provide more work.

c. There are a significant number of people who would not get job seekers allowance or income benefit because they have been out of work for over 6 months and have savings. A number of those people, difficult to gauge how many are looking for work.

3 According to the government there are 400,000 jobs on offer.

A very basic grasp of mathematics should tell you that if anything Sparky's statement is an underestimate of the number of people looking for work exceeding the number of available jobs.

Your totally irrelevant view expressed in "He said that are 2,500,000 more people than jobs. That simply is not true. I get daily emails listing scores of jobs available in the media." "I went into my local Job Centre a few months ago to see what was available and there were hundreds of jobs" has nothing to do whatsoever with the validity or otherwise of Sparky's statement.

No one denies that job vacancies exist. What is beyond question is that there is a huge imbalance between the number of job vacancies and the number of people seeking jobs. Even if one argued that of the 2.49 million people only 1.5 million were actually looking for work seriously, maybe only a 1 million of the 3 million underemployed were actually looking for work and 500,000 of the people unable to claim jsa or income support, were seeking work, Sparky would still be correct.

That is my last reply to you on this subject. I will leave you to wander off topic, citing non-sequiturs etc. etc.

[Porn Baron]

What do you class as being a job? There are lots of part time low paid jobs. But most of these don't pay enough to live on. So the people that take them are paid benefits.
A real job is one where a person can live on without being paid benefits.

I read about an unemployed recent graduate who has been claiming jobseeker's allowance for about six months. He relies on his unemployment benefit to live, but is enrolled in the government's unpaid work experience scheme for eight weeks at a local supermarket.

According to the official figures, he is employed, despite being on benefits. All the figures are fiddled in some way.

[max_tranmere]

I think it's as reasonable thing to ask of long-term unemployed people, so long as the person is not abused and treated badly. They should be treated sympathetically and not harshly as they haven't worked for years and need to be eased into the whole thing slowly. Many people are long term unemployed because of no fault of their own and want to work, some others have never considered work and view Benefits as a way of life. Those people will be as puzzled and as put out if someone was to say to them "you must work" as a monk or a nun would be if you pushed them to have a relationship. I've said on here before that there are areas of London where it is so trendy and cool to be on Benefit that you are seen as some kind of an odd person if you work. People will hold it against you. I've known some long-term Benefit dependant people in my life and I never heard, even once, any comment from them about work. Even if they couldn't get a job you would think they would at least mention the issue of work occasionally which would suggest that in an ideal world they would be working - their reticence on the subject, never even thinking about or talking about the subject of work EVER, even once, suggests they wouldn't be keen to work even if it was available, and are misusing the Benefits system as they clearly see it as a way of life for them. So yes, make the long-term unemployed work for their Benefits but only do it if they will feel respected where they are working, it starts slowly and part time because work is something they're unfamiliar with, it is not too pressured to begin with, and they will have a lot of support. In some of the 'working' class areas of London those who are pushed to do this will have to keep quiet about it though as their community will ostracise them for the terrible 'sell out' they have become by the fact they're now supporting themselves and are not reliant on handouts. I've said on here before that Bermondsey and Deptford in south London are two such areas where this applies, I knew some people in that area once and they wouldn't tolerate me for the terrible thing I was doing - namely working for a living. They referred to me as someone who was 'playing the system'. The fact they were living off the system was something that seemed to not have occured to them.

[cockneygeezer2009]

There has been high unemployment (over a million) since the 70's. Making people work for their benefits is a fucked up idea which assumes that ALL unemployed are lazy and don't want to work.

There isn't enough jobs in the economy. It's a fact. If there was we would have full employment.

[Gentleman]

But they wouldn't be supporting themselves as they would still considered on benefits (ironically the money they paid into the system while in paid work) and with the additional humiliation of being labeled scroungers etc.

It's like asking someone to look after your savings and when you finally need them being told that you have to clean the persons home and do all those jobs he don't want to pay for himself before you get your money back at a pittance each week.

State sponsored serfdom.