To ask if there is actually a job for every unemployed person on Income Support/ JSA?

[CardyMow]

Because I don't think there is, and surely if there isn't a job for everyone, then we need to ensure that everyone can eat, and live a decent life, even if they CAN'T get a job. I'm sure if you looked at the amount of jobs in Britain, and compared it to the total population of Britain, there would be a disparity between the two figures.

And I personally KNOW that there isn't enough unskilled jobs around now, for the people that CAN'T get any further qualifications.

Some people make their own work when there aren't enough jobs to go round.

I find it sad that being on job seekers allowance actively discourages people from doing volentary work or helping with the community. There is very little in the way of govenant support for being who want to be enterprising and start their own company.

It baffles me that in our local area, almost every shop assistant is Polish. Why is that? We do not live in an area that has more Poles than English, so it is certainly not proportional representation.

Is it the employers who are being discriminatory?

Primark for example, has probably around 100 staff. I would say at least 75% of them are Eastern European.

If they are coming over here and getting employment with high street shops, why are we not giving these jobs to our own british school leavers?

Probably because the British school leavers would rather loot the shops than actually work in them.

It's probably because the Poles have a reputation (rightly or wrongly) for working hard and for less. I can understand why that is attractive for an employer.

I guess you could argue it's racist but it's also logical. The perception of your average young person in the UK is they are more preoccupied with their nights out, sexual shenanigans and their 'rights' than putting in a hard days graft.

squeakytoy Because, rightly or wrongly, Eastern Europeans are perceived as having a better work ethic, better skills and providing better service than British school leavers.

Since Poland is in the EU, the Polish person has as much right to the job as a British person, just like little Dwayne from Totttenham could take himself off to Poland and work there, were he so inclined. Weirdly though, our unemployed youth dont seem as enterprising as our eastern European friends.

Not enough jobs. I was surprised to discover that a lot of the younger staff at my local Tesco are graduates. As one of them said to me "we are all living the dream".

People have to start from the bottom. I think in the past when most people left school at 15 more people were prepared to get their hands dirty. Menial work was not considered beneath people.

A lot of degrees are completely useless. Yet, young people with degrees somehow think they are better. The graduates on the checkout could rise to be a manager if they show the right attributes.

I don't think people are choosing polish staff over british. I used to be a shop manager in central london, I was the only member of staff that was english (out of 45) when we had vacancies all of the cvs were from non english people, it was very very unuasual to have an application from a english person

I think there is an issue with many people refusing to relocate. I cannot understand why people would choose to live in an area where they are unable to work, whatever their chosen career.

The exception would be where one partner has a job and the other does not, then it's a more difficult choice.

Most people I know live where they do because of work, not through choice and very few live close to their family.

TheBride Would you move to another EU country and be paid the equivalent of £4 an hour? The Poles are here because the they get paid more than they would doing a similar job in Poland surely!?

no there isn't.

I watched a programme about why people employ Eastern Europeans rather than English workers. Clearly the programme makers had set out to make a point, but the English people they showed were a bunch of feckless wasters some of whom could not even be arsed to get out of bed in the morning. Granted, the work was in a vegetable packing factory, but it was work, and the Poles were willing to do it, the English either did not turn up, or argued with the manager and then got the job wrong so it had to be redone.

With regards to the original OP, I seem to remember from some economics classes that full employment can never exist - presumably because of natural churn.

But the more people who have jobs, would they themselves not create more of a market for things which would then in turn create more employment?

Not all school leavers are work shy and and I get tired of hearing this assumption made against our young people.

My dd left school with good gcse results and wanted a part time job to support herself through college. I watched her tirelessly apply for job after job till in the end she had made around 250 applications before finally being offered a position. A year on she's proved to be an asset to the company, hard working and very reliable.

No there aren't enough jobs. But then the business community is absolutely buggered by employment laws so it can't afford to create any more jobs. If you truly want a job, you have to create one for yourself.

But people don't want to take the risk of putting effort in and getting nothing back, because the alternative of sitting on the dole is much easier. And the skills argument is a complete non-starter - I know people who can't read or write and yet they work like dogs doing anything they can in order to earn an honest living - cleaning, collecting scrap, doing removals...

It's true that when I worked on the high street we got more CVs handed in from international students than British ones. However, sometimes the international students did have an advantage, because it was a tourist area and being able to speak another language (if your English was excellent too!) was a huge asset and not many of the British CVs had that. They were very interested in my GCSE Italian when I applied for the job, even though I was honest and confessed that I wasn't very good!

TheBride Would you move to another EU country and be paid the equivalent of £4 an hour? The Poles are here because the they get paid more than they would doing a similar job in Poland surely!?

Depends what my costs were relative to the UK. Assume it's cheaper to live in Poland so it might work out better- can't imagine a Pole working in London on min wage is living in a palace. That's also the issue of a UK min wage- it's applied to only part of what is a free labour market, so of course it's going to attract people from elsewhere in the EU. But people wanted a min wage, so there's no point in complaining if that's what's happening now.

Probably not. But the well-motivated and hard-working who turn up for interview have a better chance than the others, don't they?

It confounds me though, all the vitriol on MN about benefits claimants, but in the 9 weeks since Ex-DP walked out, that I have been back on Income Support for, I have already applied for 4 jobs (there has only been 4 'unskilled' jobs advertised that are over 16 hrs+ per week and DON'T require you to drive). Each of those jobs had a minimum of 200 applicants. One of them had 420 applicants for ONE job.

Not everyone can move for work - what about if you are caring for elderly relatives, or if, like me, you have a court order over you with regards to one of your DC that bars you from leaving your current town. (Family courts CAN and DO give out these court orders now, if the NRP requests it and the NRP has no transport/ is on benefits). I can't leave my current town for another 9 years, when DS1 is 18, as twunt of an Ex-H has a court order on me. And I can't drive due to my disability (epilepsy). So I am limited to what work I can get in my local area. And 90% of the jobs are for 15 hrs a week or less.

I can't afford the childcare to do FT until DS3 is at FT school, as I would still have to pay towards childcare (Tax credits now only pays UP TO 70% of £300 a week childcare). My childcare would be £52 a day for DS3 (have looked, no childminders have got space for under 1's, need name down when pg for that), PLUS £20 a day for after school club for DS1 & DS2, AND I will have to find an SN childminder for DD (13yo) as she has asd and cannot be left alone for any length of time.

Either way, I KNOW I have to be back at work FT when DS3 is 9yo, as HRP (home responsibilities protection) only covers you for a certain amount of time, and if you add in when I've worked PT (quite a bit tbh, having 4 dc), and earning too little to pay NI contributions, so was still covered by HRP, If I don't go back to FT work then, I won't even get a state pension!!

Oh, and that in itself pisses me off, the fact that most employers are only offering jobs of 15hrs/wk or less. It's purely so they don't have to worry about the Tax Credits....there were NEVER jobs advertised for less than 16hrs/wk 10 years ago. And they won't let you take 2 of their 15 hrs a week jobs, either.

And as for Min Wage - I was 17 when they brought that in...NOT OLD ENOUGH TO VOTE FOR THE BLOODY IDIOTS THAT BROUGHT IT IN!!!! It was not my choice, and I could have (and DID) told everyone even then that it was a huge mistake. It has held wages down so that wages haven't increased in line with inflation, so while rents, CT and utilities have skyrocketed, I would only earn about £1 an hour more than I did 10 years ago, FFS. AND doubling the tax bill of the working poor has REALLY helped matters. . Ex-DP was living with me, and we were trying to support a family, and his tax overnight went from 10% to 20%. Of a wage that was £14,400 basic, £16,800 with all the overtime he was allowed to do. He's a qualified chef, has been working almost continuously since the age of 17, and that is the VERY BEST wage he could earn in this town.

loudlass - employers don't have to worry about tax credits - they don't administrate or pay tax credits, the tax credits dept do that. employers offer short hour contracts because they know they can get people to work extra when they need them, amd don't have to let people go during quieter times.

So why is more NOT being done to teach dc a work ethic? My dc are not exactly from the 'top of the pile' in life advantages - I was a teen mum with no qualifications, am now a single parent, used to have drink problems (now teetotal), parent on benefits (at mo), blah blah blah. Doesn't mean they aren't being taught that if you want something, you have to work for it. If other dc aren't getting taught it at home, why don't they teach it in these crappy citizenship lessons that they have now?

What do you mean by 'create a job for yourself'? How are you meant to do that if you have no money to start up with? Not many people who are in a cycle of deprivation are going to have the first idea how to write a business plan, or even what one is, and no bank is going to lend money (not that any of them are any more) to someone who has maybe never worked, with some pie-in-the-sky idea of running their own business. And even for ones that COULD run a business, who would do their accounts, or work out their taxes, if they weren't capable, and they hadn't earnt enough in their first year, say, to hire an accountant?

Most people on benefits, who have realised that they can't get out of their situation without attending college, are, frankly, fucked. There IS no help to go to college, if you do a FT course, your IS/JSA is stopped (so how do you feed your dc...), you can't get a student loan unless you are doing a degree (most people, like me, need to sit their bloody GCSE's first), and the course fees are totally prohibitive. Believe me, I've looked, I just wanted my English and Maths GCSE's, as I'm being turned down for checkout jobs. Despite having been an assistant manager of a shop in the distant past, now it seems to be a requirement for cleaning bloody toilets (that's NOT a joke BTW, a toilet cleaner job required both - no point in me even bothering to apply!). Can you guess how much? £280, plus any childcare on top...That comes so easily for someone getting by on next to fuck all.

Umm..you can't go on courses on JSA as that makes you no longer actively seeking work! My partner tried for ages to find a way of getting more skills but the job centre said a big fat NO! He has, finally, got a job but can take years, especially if you have been without employment through ill health. Most people won't touch you.

Oh, and that's £280 for EACH GCSE. I've never been allowed in the exam hall to even attempt to sit them, as I got moved down a year when I moved to Scotland, then they kicked me out because I was pg. Enrolled in College before I moved back daaahn sarf, they sent me a letter stating they would hold my place, and didn't...so no GCSE's. Have an aborted attempt at a BTEC in the constructed environment to my name that I paid a fucking fortune for, that I had to leave halfway through because I was dxd with epilepsy and am never allowed on a building site again, so qualification would have been worthless to me.

I know lots more people on benefits that WANT a way out of the situations they are in, but none of us can FIND a way. My only idea is to find work. I won't be financially better off (hell, I doubt I'll even break even with benefits, and I'm pretty hand to mouth as it is), but I'l be emotionally and morally better off as it'll be setting a good example to my dc. Same reason I used to work 6x10hr night shifts in Asda, when I started my dc were 6.7, 2.6 and 11 months. I'd get in and take over with the dc when I got in so Ex-P could go to work, maybe catching 3hrs sleep in every 24 in 1 hr bursts. If I can do that, with epilepsy, then so can 90% of people on benefits - if the jobs are there.

TBH, madhatter, I'm not declaring the fact that my epilepsy is most of the reason I've been out of work for 3yrs. I'm putting it down to child-rearing....At least I no longer HAVE to declare my epilepsy on the application form, I never got anywhere when I had to do that!

loudlass my partner ad depression, when that started to get better he was diagnosed with Diabetes...it's been a bloomin nightmare. We arer nearly there now...hope you have some luck soon. It really is nasty being in that situation.