AIBU to think the Job Centre is one of the reasons why unemployment is low?

[M0naLisa]

I went for my interview today at the job centre for JSA. I was expecting her to go through all jobs that i could do that i had put down, sales, retail, customer service, receptionist, admin. She looked at "two" admin jobs, they wanted payroll and accounts experience which i do not have. So she closed the page down with the jobs on and said 'no there isn't any suitable jobs for you this week'

:| hmm ok what about the sales and retail ones on the JC website?

Good job i have internet access so i can look and search and send off for jobs myself.

AIBU to think that this could also be a major problem as to why there are so many people out of work?

The bad attitude shown by some of the staff serves no useful purpose anyway. The real workshy...do they care what a jobcentre employee says to them? No, of course they dont, they laugh in the face of anyone who might give them stick, they know how to play the system.

The only people who suffer are the genuine claimants who want and try to get back into work and get kicked in the teeth every step of the way by jobsworth (who never makes a mistake, honest).

The Jobcentre and a fair proportion of its staff are useless, rude, unfriendly, unhelpful and just about every other criticism you can think of. But they are not to blame for unemployment being high. That is due to immigration, jobs being exported to foreign countries paying cheaper wages, the collapse of manufacturing, the collapse of the financial system, the worldwide recession, and also the fact that many women work now who would in the past have been housewifes/stay at home mums. There are other reasons too...

(sorry, that should be "housewives" before a pedant corrects me!).

'Also turned up 2 minutes late due to a massive car crash on the road outside the jobcentre, and was told I'd lost my slot and had to come back the next day.'

My mate had to sign on after being made redundant, having worked all her adult life, age 46.

She was doing all she could to find a job, any job, even temp.

One time an agency got her an interview. It was same time as her sign on appointment time.

She'd been 8 months without work, was getting desperate, already on income-based JSA.

So she asked to move her sign on time, in person, bringing in her letter with her interview time and date.

They told her if she didn't show up for her sign on she would lose her JSA effective immediately.

It was only after she emailed her MP they conceded.

As she said, she was in no position to call the shots on the interview time, she wanted to work.

This thread has just reminded me of when my DH was claiming JSA for a couple of months back when dd was born. She was 8 weeks premature and quite poorly, we had to be transferred to a hospital a long distance from home. His appointment time at the JC clashed with when we were told she could finally come home after 6 weeks in SCBU..... they refused to move the appointment! to be fair, it wasn't a disaster as he joined me at the hospital as soon as he could but seemed a bit harsh to me. I wonder if there is any acceptable reason to get a JC appointment time moved?!

I think some of the posters are being a bit unfair. It's true the process doesn't work but it's unfair to say that all job centre staff are rude and unhelpful. I've been signing on for the last 3 months and the staff are always very friendly and helpful. I also take my DD (12 months) with me and they always let me use the staff lift and everyone is friendly and makes a fuss of her.

I think the problem is that they only have 4 minutes to check your signing evidence and then look for work so they can't do more than the most rudimentary search. I think they are also hindered by an awful IT system which doesn't allow them to make anything but the most simplistic of searches. I've also found the staff on the Job Centre Direct phoneline to be very pleasant and helpful too so it's unfortunate that others haven't found them so good.

Mousesma , I agree. The people I dealt with, bar one, were lovely. I had to take both DCs with me and they were fine with that. I feel sorry for them because they are so constricted by crap systems and other people's mistakes.

The same thing happened to my friend lachesis. She was told she would be sanctioned if she didn't sign on and sanctioned if she didn't attend the interview. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Whoever said up thread about working at the JC and being attacked etc. AFAIC there is no excuse for attacking someone, but neither is being attacked any reason to treat every other person like scum. I appreciate the IT is rubbish and that they are time limited but imo that is no excuse for rudeness and unreasonableness which is all I have experienced. I only work a few hours a week at the moment yet every week I am sworn at, threatened regularly and I have been assaulted. Even so the next patient gets the service they deserve, I smile (ok sometimes it is forced if I am shaking or in pain after being attacked), I am always polite, it is possible to compartmentalise things and not punish one person for the sins of another.

I have been told I am inflexible for saying I wouldn't apply for a job in Essex (500miles away, yes 500),
I have been told based only on my name and NI number I would be incapable of doing anyjob,
I have been told to get off my fat arse and try harder, my arse is not fat mainly due to skipping meals to save money.
I have been asked why I didn't bother getting qualifications even though I have a degree and post-grad qualifications.
I have been asked why I expected to ever get a job when I had never bothered in my life. (I worked part time as a student the full time from 22 to just short of 31)

Losing your job is not the most humiliating thing ever, going to the job centre is.

that's the thing that pisses me off most - coming up over and over again....
the staff saying they're forcing you to go for jobs that aren't suitable.
they get "points" for referrals where the claimant/jobseeker gets the job that they refer. So why do they keep insisting on forcing jobseekers to go for jobs they're not going to get?
it doesn't look good for their stats, and it doesn't help the jobseeker

M0naLisa
i feel your pain!!

i signed on a year ago, just for the support in finding a job that i thought i'd get
i didn't get any money for it (i'm an immigrant) so i was purely going there to get some help, the weekly sessions were something like "you did that and that this week. alright, off you go then" "but i was told to bring a better version of my cd, i've edited it" "oh, alright then bye now"

not impressed!

I have found dealing with the Jobcentre/DWP a horrible experience. The staff in Belfast and London have no idea how job markets work. I was temping before Christmas and the job was cut short. I tried to find work through agencies before signing on. if you do not have the habit of dealing with the DSS/Job centre, it is usually not your first thought to sign on, you normally try to find work first. However, London businesses basically shut down from the second week in December, there is no recruitment until the second week in January. When I explained this in my claim, it was dismissed and I was simply told that I had not tried hard enough and that they would not start my claim until January 2011.

They have straightforward civil service jobs and have no understanding of the rest of the world. When I signed on they told me off for not filling in the forms properly, i.e. best handwriting, details of telephone numbers, addresses of companies, outcomes etc, they would stop my money, not that they ever check anything. The main mode of working is to threaten people with stopping their benefits (£65 a week). They refused to refund the cost of going to two interviews because I did not ask them for permission to buy the tickets before I went. At one return to work interview, the worker told us that when she was unemployed she applied for 300 jobs a week! a physical impossibilty if you look at most application forms. Another one told us in the meeting that if we heard about someone being sacked we should rush into their company to get their job. The same tactic was to be used if we heard that someone had been made redundant. The thinking was that there was still work to do so someone could take the job. They did not understand that redundancy means that they cut posts and make fewer people do more work. The whole experience was a depressing example of sheer ignorance.

They had the nerve to write to me after I got a job (hurray) to tell me that my benefits were taxable (even though the benefits are accrued from income that has already been taxed!) and then pointed out how helpful their staff are (they know nothing and can therefore do nothing). I think that these people live in cloud cuckoo land. I just hope that I can stay in work and away from these complacent people and the rotten system they work with.

they are a total anachronism and a hindrance, imho. They exist merely to provide the illusion that they are helping people get into work as they dispense benefits. Especially in the internet age, it seems ludicrous to have some bureaucrat tell you what is and isn't available in your area. They seem to spend more time arbitrarily punishing people by, say, docking benefits because you have to attend a funeral or because you refuse to do a 1,000 mile round-trip for a job interview etc. Can't see why a motivated person who had access to the internet would bother with one....

And another thing ...

I was informed by the JC at my first interview that they are very strict about timekeeping and if I turned up even one minute late to sign on I would lose my appointment ... so I ALWAYS turn up on time, but I am ALWAYS kept waiting around 10 minutes before they see me.

It was only after she emailed her MP they conceded.

i had to do that once. Once the MP got involved they got all smarmy, but actually shot themselves in the foot by saying they had tried to contact me and left numerous messages on the answerphone.

I didnt have an answerphone or anything like it

It occurs to me the clerks have a very unhappy job. Not happy bunnies

But I would recommend going to MP with serious problems

I quite honestly hate the Jobcentre right now.

DP started claiming on 24th May, signed on for a month with no money appearing to be told we couldn't get anything because of my student loan.
I don't even start the bloody course til September, so as of yet there is no student loan.

So dayyyysss of calling them again and again, being told you will get a call back in three hours.. blah blah blah, it gets sorted.
'Yes Metal, your DP will be getting the money backdated to 24th May'
Did they bother to tell us this would only be £87 as we were getting working Tax credit run on..... no.

Then another few days of calling and calling them to ask what the hell was going on.
Most of them seem to have no idea.
I wouldn't be bothered if they had said in the first place, but they made DP drive to sign on for over a month on money we don't have when we wouldn't be getting anything. =/

I am not surprised people would rather struggle than have to go through hours and hours of useless phone calls being chucked from one who person who doesn't have a clue to the next exactly the same.
Or to phone and be told to bloody well call later as they are busy.

BUT the one GREAT thing they have done is get DP a 2 week work trial.
Today is his last day so fingers crossed he will have a job and no more bloody Jobcentre!!!!!!!!
(Unfortunately the work trial is stupidly only for under 25's, it seems the only good thing they do).

If anyone is battling or disputing a DWP benefit sanction,and you are getting nowhere,there is a charitable organization called Zaccheus 2000 which will fight on your behalf. They have top lawyers giving their time free who fight benefit and housing misjudgements. They also provide a Mckenzie Friend service.
They managed to overturn a sanction that was over a year old!

creighton - that's awful :(
it sounds like they really didn't have a clue how to help.

300 jobs in a week! not only is it physically impossible, it's also a very stupid thing to do.
it means that you don't put your thought into each application, which means you're less likely to get a response, never mind an interview.
I can just imagine the drone-like applications.
whenever i receive a CV, i don't even bother reading it if they don't mention enjoying reading, because I can't employ someone who doesn't believe in the product I'm selling (customers can tell if you've never read anything, and if you don't love the books, you just can't convince someone else they will love them too!)

Yanbu to think they're ineffective.

Yabu to rely on them to find you work.

DH just got off the phone with the local jobcentre. We're trying to go from income support to self employed and have read about a scheme to help with the transition. Woman at the job centre denied all knowledge of it (the receptionist knew about it though) and kept trying to get DH off the phone.

The Guardian ran a story earlier this year about job centres. Have put a link up. I'm afraid it's 11 minutes and 22 seconds long, but the gist of it can be gained very early on. www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2011/apr/01/jobcentre-whistleblower-target-culture-welfare.