To expect the UK's 1 million unemployed to get a job as a Care Worker?

[SquireOfGreenway]

The number of people unemployed in the UK is just over 1 million - the lowest it's been since the early 1970s. However, we should still surely expect that figure to be even lower.

From next year, it may be much harder for care-providing organisations to recruit European migrants to fill their Care Worker vacancies.

Surely, it is reasonable to expect any UK resident who is unemployed, claiming job-seekers allowance and so far unable to get a job to be required to get a job as a Care Worker? If they don't then they should be sanctioned and lose their state benefits.

I am not just talking about Care Work. I am talking about all minimum-wage and minimum-wage plus jobs that we have been relying on European migrants to fill.

Why not? There will always be maybe a few 100,000s unemployed, as people move from one job to another, etc. But why should there be a million unemployed people if there is a shortage of workers in any industry that does not require any great level of pre-entry qualifications?

To be a care worker, you need aptitude for caring. Just because the pay is terrible and the hours are long doesn't mean it's a job that lacks skills. It's just that the skills are woefully undervalued in our society.
You also need to be fit as it requires lifting, pushing wheelchairs, fetching and carrying, cleaning, tidying and running around after people. It needs patience and compassion.
You also need to be able to work shifts which rules out the huge number of single mothers who are unemployed because they actually have a job caring for children and the feckless men who wandered off and aren't parenting or contributing would be appalling caseworkers if they cannot even meet their own families' needs.

All of the reasons against this ludicrous idea have already been mentioned above.

Do you imagine every person in society will have a clean DBS/CRB? Or should we also downgrade the need to have one? After all we’re only sending people into the homes of the most vulnerable in society. Why would it matter if they had a minor conviction or two? Burglary, GBH etc?

You’re a Tory voting cliche op
Give your head a wobble

Nurses don’t earn 36k. The band 5 nursing salary which most nurses stay on, is £24-£30k. Nurses need degrees. There is no justification for paying a care assistant £23k.

In the NHS, a band 2 healthcare assistant earns 17-19k. I believe they now have to work towards an NVQ. Whilst care work is a much needed and important job, it’s counted as low skilled work.

I hear you SinkGirl

I don't currently work as I care for my DC as detailed in my earlier post and I cannot find a job to fit around this.

I am called into school at short notice at least twice a week. I have scheduled meetings at least once a fortnight, more when its targets review time or there are assessments being done. When oldest DS did attend childcare, back before I gave up working, I would regularly be called at work to immediately collect him as he would be having a meltdown and, as well as being distressing for him, it was frightening the other children. I had notice from four separate childcare providers in the space of ten months and many others informed me they could not even begin care as they would be unable to properly meet his needs and it wouldn't be fair on him. Youngest DS has weekly physio and OT, separate appointments on different days, and after Easter he will be going to a weekly SALT workshop for twelve weeks. They both have daily therapies and exercises to complete.

I have yet to find any employer who will accommodate all of the above.

I'm curious as to why so many think that before unemployed people can claim on their NI policy, which they will have forked out 12% of their wages to pay into, should be made to pick up the litter they've dropped and clean their shitstains off the toilet to get their money. It's as though they want to dehumanise and punish claimants. Maybe we should make that condition for any insurance claim. Faulty boiler? 144 hours of clearing rotten flytipping first before you see a penny.

Why on earth would anyone want someone who is unskilled and/or unwilling to provide intimate care for the people they love? Utterly ridiculous idea.

Maybe we could outsource, it send our elderly and disabled people to countries where labour is cheaper?

Whether you agree with it or not (and I don't), it raises a good question. Who is going to fill all these carer, cleaner and factory jobs?

I wonder how many people who voted for Brexit actually thought about that?

Banding can be a bit misleading though @PlomBear ,I was a top band five before I left about 5 years ago I think I earned about £34,000 but that was with a lot of shift enhancements and unsocial hours added on .

Not every unemployed person is young and fit. Many have low level health problems or are older themselves. A 55 year old ex miner isn't going to be much use caring for a fully dependent adult, although some might be great. My brother recently changed jobs from warehouse ford lift truck driving to caring for adults with learning disabilities in the community and he is fabulous at it.

Of course you don't want unskilled or unwilling workers providing intimate care for the people that you love
The problem is that there is no one willing to do this work
what is going to happen to the people that we love for whom we want care provided if no one is willing or able to do it?

PlomBear Wed 19-Feb-20 10:41:00
"Nurses don’t earn 36k. The band 5 nursing salary which most nurses stay on, is £24-£30k. Nurses need degrees. There is no justification for paying a care assistant £23k.

In the NHS, a band 2 healthcare assistant earns 17-19k. I believe they now have to work towards an NVQ. Whilst care work is a much needed and important job, it’s counted as low skilled work."

The justification for improving wages and terms and conditions is that if you can't recruit the people that you need then you have to. Stick with the same pay, the same terms and conditions = have the same recruitment crises.

But if you have the requirement "they have to like, care about and be passionate & good at their job" to every person, then the country would have tens of millions of unemployed. Loads of people are in jobs they don't give a shit about and just for money - even teachers and nurses. People need jobs to live, unless they want to claim benefits. So I'm not sure that's a great argument.

The carers at the dementia care home in which my mother lives are expected to have NVQ level 2 in Health and Social Care and are given training to get to NVQ3. If they show aptitude, they can also get training up to Level 4. Plus passing DBS.

It helps the home is part of a not-for-profit chain that believes in the development of its employees. A lot of staff have been there since it opened in 2012. There are Brits and EU staff at all levels of care & management.

They don't want untrained beginners as there are skills needed dealing with dementia as well as general care.

Is all very well saying we need to improve pay and conditions but care homes are already unaffordable
Back in the old days this kind of work was fobbed off onto women who could be manipulated into doing it for free for family members, but now quite rightly women expect to have careers and fulfilled lives, no one wants to do this work for the money that's on offer and no one is prepared to pay enough to incentivise those who might have the right skills and aptitude for it

i hope that Dominic Cummings doesn't see this thread, he'd probably love the idea.

Care work needs to be done by people who genuinely care, who treat it as a professional job and who want to make people's twilight years as good as they can be and not by people forced into 'national service'

I think we need to monitor care workers a lot more not out anyone into the job.

A man in the neighbouring village to me was a care worker he's just gone to prison for 12 years for raping and impregnating the girl he has been caring for. She was unable to communicate along with other health issues meant she couldn't speak out and it was only noticed when she missed 3 months periods

I don’t think that work work however I do think they should bring back conscription at 18 where they have the choice of a number options that are of benefit to society, perhaps a choice of military, care work, public grounds maintenence etc. Everyone would undergo some sort of check for suitability and you could choose to defer till after university or to a certain age if that was your preference. Possibly make it a bit like jury duty. I think it would be good for everyone all round.

Well I think you do have a bot of a point!.
Perhaps not all suited to care work (as you do say in your post) but some definitely will be after they have been trained for the role. Do you all think that the Europeans in these roles currently are following their career dreams?

Others not suitable for care work can do the car wash, pick fruit and other unskilled manual labour etc. It's good news for all these people who say the low paid Europeans have taken their jobs. They will be more jobs available for these people.

I also used to work in a jobcentre. Believe me that most of the people I saw who were claiming long term would not be the sort of people who are suited to care work. And some of them would be a danger to anyone they were looking after.

How ridiculous

Employing somebody to look after vulnerable old people , who might not want to be a Carer, is absurd .

So OP never came back?

How easy do you think a care workers job is? Do you think it's just making cups of tea and sitting chatting?

I work as a carer for severely disabled adults, I can assure you that the job would not be suitable for just anyone who needed a job.

Stop being so naive.

YABVVU. A job in care work has to be something you're passionate about. It can't be "just a job". That's a very dangerous thought process op which could cause far more harm tha n good. Would you want someone who has no heart in the job looking after your relat ive o r yourself. I certainly wouldn't.
Also you're forgetting if everyone unemployed got a job as a care worker. Where does that leave job centre staffs jobs. Like it or not the unemployed are keeping them in work.