Job seekers - less pressure due to Covid?

[fucketyfuckwit]

I live in a town where the hospitality trade is really suffering at the moment due to the lack of casual staff.

I understand that last year at some point job seekers were put under less pressure to search for a job to qualify for their benefits.

Is that still the case?

Not sure about anywhere else but where I am the obligation to look for work has been removed from the universal credit claim. It will be returning quite soon though, my work coach tells me.

I was on jsa earlier in the year, I got money put into my account for about 2 months with no contact and then my local job centre got in contact and I had to begin the calls with the job centre and work proof.

Thank you, I was struggling to understand it. But that could play part of it I suppose.

I was on job seekers for just under 2 months earlier this year after being made redundant. I never even heard from my job coach or anything but this was during Jan and Feb lockdown. I was obviously looking for a job and stopped claiming as soon as I started work but I was surprised I never had an email, call or anything to make sure I was job hunting.

Not everyone is a job seeker. Lots of casual staff are students etc. Also some people have left the country to return to their home country.

@BendingSpoons no, i get that. I tried to recruit some people for some work last week. £14ph which for this part of the world is good pay for what it was. No interest at all, nothing!!! I was so surprised. I was expecting there would be loads of people out there looking for some easy cash 8 hours a day for 3 days, 2 of which were over a weekend.

I think your issue there OP, is wanting people who will work both Saturdays and Sundays. Is that a permanent requirement that staff worth both weekend days?

Easy cash? So cash in hand? That wouldn’t affect someone’s universal credit/job seekers then.

Also was it a casual role? Or a fixed term contract? A lot of hospitality staff are wary of a third wave and being chucked again when that happens. They’re looking for jobs that won’t be affected if everything shuts down again. Everyone is tbh.

I wouldn't have expected loads of people to want to work both days of the weekend every single week, no.

Are you taking people without experience?

Because I'm actually looking for bar/cafe work for a few days a week over the summer between office jobs, but despite being perfectly intelligent enough to learn the tasks required, most employers seem to want experience.

(I'm not dissing the role, just saying I could learn it! I've done casual cafe work before/pulled pints, taken cash - just not full time bar work, which is what they seem to want for some reason, in spite of the shortage.)

It wasn't every single week. It was a one off 3 day job.

I just thought there would be some people who wanted to earn some extra money for a weekend of easy work thats all.

Oh so it was literally just 3 days work? Why would anyone fuck up their Uc for that?

@fucketyfuckwit

It wasn't every single week. It was a one off 3 day job.

I just thought there would be some people who wanted to earn some extra money for a weekend of easy work thats all.

The benefits system cannot cope with this type of casual work. It would be very risky for someone to do this as they could lose UC for weeks afterwards

Unless you advertised it as CASH in hand I’m not suprised.

No one is going to fuck UC up for the sake of that.

No the benefits system is not fkexible enough to cope with a few days work