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?

Gonetoget you are right in what you say .My employer does not believe in Zero contract so we are on a guaranteed hrs contract and are paid well above minimum wage with travel and wait time and mileage but this is not the norm. This is why agencies struggle to recruit .

Replying even though it seems a “plop and run” by a new user? Because in case anyone fool enough to think this a good idea may be reading

For starters if you really believe there’s only 1 million people unemployed in this country at the moment you’re deluded!

Estimates by others - not the govt -range from 2m to as much as 6m

That figure I believe is ONLY the number of people on Jobseeker’s Allowance or who are in receipt of uc on the same criteria.

It doesn’t include:

Sahp who are not Sahp out of choice

Sick and disabled people in receipt of those benefits but who could work given the right support - AND if the prejudice against people returning to work after long periods off due to illness were addressed.

Early retirees - not through choice, there’s a huge problem with the rising retirement age, not least the expectation on manual workers to work into their 70’s!

Non-working adult children who are still living at home and not claiming benefits.

Etc

Secondly I worked in elderly care for several years as a nurse. It is an extremely skilled and demanding role to care for others. There are already huge problems with people doing this job purely to earn who actually have no interest in or aptitude for the role. It is deeply insulting to both those who do the job and do it well and to the clients who deserve the best of care to even suggest such a ludicrous proposition!

The same is true of the vast majority of other jobs even nmw ones. All jobs require certain skills, aptitudes and personalities.

Also there aren’t actually enough jobs to cover the numbers of unemployed - and that IS according to govts own figures. And when you account for the fact that those figures they use for how many job vacancies there are include 0 hours contracts, temp positions, jobs of only 2 HOURS a week! Not full time permanent positions, their figures there are woefully under-calculated too.

I would like mandatory armed forces enrolment

Gosh yes! Career soldiers totally love having to babysit people who don't want to be there who have access to deadly weapons. Jeez.

I don't want people caring for the elderly and disabled because someone makes them! Care work is a vocation - you have to be compassionate, hard-working and concientious. How on earth would you know which of the 1m unemployed are suited? It's also hard, physical work which many people would struggle with. I think your post is very strange tbh. And negligent.

But this is what 'we' wanted...less foreigners stealing our jobs .

For all of the reasons above, please don't force unsuitable people to be carers.

I do think for some other jobs, come on 'Brexit voting, new conservative voters'...get off your backsides, off to hospitality jobs with unsocial hours, factory jobs, fruit and veg picking. You have your chance to work, we need you!

The other side of this is my graduate DC's and their friends are struggling to find graduate entry jobs, yet immigration will support the qualified to be here.
My graduate DC's are doing those unsocial hospitality jobs (50 hours a week), they are working in call centres and shops.
I don't understand how this will work out at all?

Absolutely not!! I am a care worker I'm very protective over my clients, I want the best possible care available to them and that is not from someone forced into the job! It's long hours, rubbish pay, it's mental draining.
I do it because of the different it makes in peoples lives.
It's not an easy job, not just anyone can do it, you have to really care and want to make a different else vulnerable people suffer.
You have to want to go the extra mile, like what you do and have empathy and compassion. If there's any job you should NOT be forced into, its care.

Would you want an elderly relative of yours 'cared' for by someone who really doesn't want to do it? You really haven't thought this through have you? Plus you insult those of us who work as carers. Not everyone is up to the job you know.

but it’s also not a job with rare skills

I'd argue a career needs "rarer skills" than a GP

not a job with rare skills

If you’ve got a shortage you’ve got a rare skill whether it’s rocket science or bin men.

Somewhat on a tangent to this, I remember an article in the guardian regarding agricultural workers from Romania and Bulgaria and the farmers said they prefer employing them because they already know what they're doing and need minimal training whereas the British workers, even if perfectly willing, needed a lot of training as they hadn't done that sort of work before. Conversely, the foreign workers don't usually speak English so they can't do the training.

I thought the situation the OP described already WAS what happens to people claiming JSA. People told to apply for any job at all, sanctioned for not doing so?

The UK voted for this and the Govt is implementing their wishes, if there are issues, then its down to the UK - no one else
My brexitier, elderly aunt is rather worried she wont be able to get a care package as she has recently become ill, what can you say?

I am surprised an employer (on BBC news) described her butchers and bakers as "unskilled" workers, no wonder she can't get folk to work for her.

This is how abuse happens- people who don't care enough to care. Care is a very very demanding job. I've been a carer previously and was physically assaulted multiple times by the people I was caring for, because my boss didn't care at all and frequently pressured me into unsafe working situations. It didn't feel like an unskilled job that just about anyone could or should take up.

Care should be regulated and frankly carers should be paid more. If it was a valued job in society hopefully more people who actually wanted to do a good job would go into it. There are already more than enough carers who are burnt out or run too thin or didn't care enough to begin with, we don't need more.

it really makes my blood boil when people assume that care is a low grade job,

Care is a low grade job. It shouldn't be but the employers, the government, people in society mostly see it that way. To a lot of people it's nothing more than making cups of tea and microwaving meals for people and then feeding them, making beds and so on.

The reality is very different.

Some comments are calling on care assistants to be paid £25k - that’s more than a newly qualified nurse earns! Where is the money coming from to give care assistants a £10k pay rise?
An adult earning much less than 25k isn't going to be self-sufficient, certainly not in in the South/London. This is why we have a minimum wage, and and why the Living wage is higher. Care workers should not have to be subsidised by benefits in order to live. And the time they spend at work, including travelling between clients, should be paid for.

What do we think the effects of a worker shortage will be? It should be increased wages- supply and demand- but something tells me that won't happen. Personally, I suspect that there are a lot people working for less than minimum wage, un-unionised. If NMW is paid across the board, to fruit-pickers, seasonal workers etc, I think we can expect food prices to go up.It would take a good, strong government to deal with the profiteers who "employ" vulnerable immigrants to do the shit jobs no-one else will do because of the pay and conditions, but I'm not holding my breath.

my dd lives in a care home. the carers that look after are trained people. people that chose that job.
I do not want people who have no training(qualifications) looking after her.

This is a crazily inappropriate idea. The LAST people you want working in care are people who have been forced into it. And forcing people to work jobs that may be wholly unsuitable for them and therefore affect their mental and or physical health? Nope. Not gonna work.

'Care package', LOL, she won't be able to get one of those at all because they've gone poof! in many areas. But hey, people voted for it.

In my last job, I dealt with a lot of people on out of work benefits. The vast majority were the absolute epitome of the type of person you WOULD NOT want caring for a loved one/yourself.
This isn’t a generalisation, or a sweeping statement. It’s based on my years coming into daily contact with them. Not all obviously, but the majority

This is the worst idea I’ve seen so far on mumsnet. Congratulations OP.

Fortunately everyone else has pointed out the absurdity of your suggestion so I don’t have to.

Are you Priti Patel OP?

I would not want some body who just needs a job to look after my ill parents. I work in the care sector and have recently become a manager in that sector, however in all the time I have been doing care, the amount of people who I have worked with who don't give a rat's arse about the people they are caring for is unreal. They don't care if people's needs have been met, they care about the pay check at the end of the month.
On the flip side I have worked with people that have never thought of doing care before and have loved it so much that they have made a career out of it.

Somewhat on a tangent to this, I remember an article in the guardian regarding agricultural workers from Romania and Bulgaria and the farmers said they prefer employing them because they already know what they're doing and need minimal training whereas the British workers, even if perfectly willing, needed a lot of training as they hadn't done that sort of work before. Conversely, the foreign workers don't usually speak English so they can't do the training.

So workers won Bulgaria and Romania already know what to do? How? By instinct? Most of them are young people who have never been near a farm until they came here.

The farmers prefer them because they are prepared to work for less and they put up with bad working conditions.

Need minimal training my arse. That's what they get, because it suits someone else.

I dont think shoving the unemployed into care jobs is the answer......as they would be back unemployed because either they hate the job or have been sacked

I’m sick of care work being at the bottom of the pile. You need a lot of skills to be a care assistant/support worker.