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?

Sorry, why do the most vulnerable amongst us have to be cared for by what are essentially the unemployable? That is a revolting suggestion.

Agreed! Most of these 1 million are literally unemployable for all sorts of complex reasons.

Also just want to throw in that millions of administrative jobs are on the way out due to AI and do there will be masses of people who do reasonably but not well paid work having to shift from office to care work. Same with retail. The government know exactly what they are doing here, they are just not prepared to be honest. Earning £9.73 an hour working for Direct Line will be a thing of the past. I am working with a client who are looking to lose 60% of their admin staff it be next 15 years and yes, they are in the public sector......

Oh lord what a silly nugget OP!
Did you stop to think that a lot of unemployed people are past offenders and disabled folk, have you looked at the criteria for becoming a care worker or are you a tory sounding people out or do you not care who will look after your elderly relative, but hey could be you being looked after by an incompetent person in the future so be careful what you wish for.
I think the Tories are cooking up something and have sent OP to test us

Care workers should be properly vetted and trained, they also should receive more than min wage imo. The job can be exhausting and relentless, it isn’t an easy job by any means and I don’t think everyone is cut out for it.

Did you stop to think that a lot of unemployed people are past offenders and disabled folk

Not to mention a significant portion of them being people in their late 50s and early 60s made redundant, the latter of whom had their pension age increased suddenly and both of whom were just the sort the Tories professed to love as they'd 'paid in all their lives'. Now they are to be considered as convicts ordered to perform community service for private companies?

And again, Squire, although you are long gone, Patel mentioned not just the 'long-term unemployed' but 'economically inactive' people and specifically 'the retired, students and those with caring responsibilities'. Tell me, please, how are those people going to be encouraged to take up these seasonal jobs which are spread throughout the year all over the UK? Exactly how?

'economically inactive' people and specifically 'the retired...

The retired have damn well earned their retirement. No way am I about to take the place of the Polish carer who's had to go home, just because the government's now panicking about how these jobs will be filled. I've done my time. Priti Patel can do one if she's going to pick on me and my fellow retirees for being 'economically inactive'

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 could think of a lot of things to say to her jasjas73! If your response to her wasn't some variant of 'tough shit, should've thought about that before voting for something that will make our society less likely to be able to supply and afford to pay carers' you're a more patient woman than I.

Care work seems to require a huge number of specialist skills, to me.

Although I agree, sara, you are precisely whom Patel and that ilk appear to have in their sites, hence, why she said it and why I'm agog at just how many retirees voted Tory. I mean, these are the people who raised the pension age at a stroke, penalising mostly women born in the 50s, who removed Pension Credit for poor pensioners who have a spouse or partner under pension age (which, again, they raised) and forced them onto UC, who advertised for 'weirdos and misfits' to act as paid advisers and hired an openly rampant racist, misogynist xenophobe. It can't come as a surprise that the likes of them expect retirees to do this sort of work.

When Patel starts work as a carer , I will join her

It will be the pensioners who are reliant on top up benefits who are the more likely targets of this, rather than pensioners as a cohort. The Tories can't realistically remove the state pension, but what they could do is freeze it or increase below inflation, and make pension credit and housing benefit harder to get. It wouldn't be that difficult, merely removing the preferential treatment for pensioners over the bedroom tax would force some of them back into at least some paid employment. And might not even be that difficult a sell. Things like that, little tweaks.

The stick back into paid work will only affect certain pensioners, the richer ones won't be so easily directed and are more likely to be beyond the influence of changes to housing benefit. But they were also less likely to be Tory supporters in the first place.

Oh look, Priti Patel is on mumsnet!

Oh look, Priti Patel is on mumsnet!

I'm just wondering now whether she's the piss troll, the council house troll or the benefits horse troll.

I want to point out that they are not called EU migrants they are called EU citizen and who exercised their right of free movement.

You are absolutely bat shit crazy OP

Can’t we call them EU ex-pats? Or is that just for Brits abroad?

haven’t RTT. I hope this is satire OP. Off to read it now.

Care work and hospitality. 20% of staff in hospitality are foreign born, 10% of health care workers are foreign. According to the BBC news feature I’ve just watched.

8.5 million people are economically inactive.

I imagine that hospitality / retail / warehouse work will be further automated over the next decade.

To expand further on my point about top up benefits for pensioners being removed as a stick upthread, I think actually this announcement is intended to give notice of further benefits cuts. It's being couched as a migration thing but that's only part of it. The government can't force people into work, but what they can do impose more significant conditionality and freeze existing benefits, thus making work more necessary.

So for example SAHPs whose partners earn enough to keep the household aren't going to take employment if they don't want to, but those who rely on UC might, even if their youngest child is under three. If you provide less in the way of student finance, some students whose families can't make up the difference will have to work more. That type of thing.

With increased automation, are the only jobs around going to be in healthcare? Either as care assistants or health care professionals - nurses, OTs, radiographers etc.

For all those criticising the OP I would point out that this was suggested by the Tory government recently elected by the public. It is in response to the problems created by a policy (brexit) also voted for by the public.

We are getting what we voted for with this.

I did care work for a while to top up my earnings whilst my DH was at Uni.
I loved it, but it's long hours, tiring and utterly exhausting. It takes a special kind of person to do that job. Money is dreadful. Minimum wage.People are extremely vulnerable and I saw some absolutely shit Carers that frankly gave no fucks.
Forcing people to be carers? Not sure what planet the OP is on.

Just wondering why it's ok for Brits to claim benefits rather than do unskilled labour. Yet you're all happy for people coming over here to do jobs that Brits refuse to get out of bed for. Are migrants to the UK less 'worthy'? Why should migrants have to do unskilled and low paid work? Many are likely well over qualified for jobs like cleaning, hospitality jobs, vegetable picking.
I do think some British born citizens would rather have hand outs than do a job they feel is beneath them.
I don't think they should go into care work however. We need positive and hard working and caring people in the care industry. As everyone else is saying care work should pay well. I have no idea where the money is going - people are paying £1k a week for care. They stay in a small room and eat basic food. They should expect that huge fee to at least pay a proper wage for their carer.

For all those criticising the OP I would point out that this was suggested by the Tory government recently elected by the public. It is in response to the problems created by a policy (brexit) also voted for by the public.

We are getting what we voted for with this.

Yes and no. A majority of votes cast in the referendum were for Brexit, though there was no opportunity to choose the kind of Brexit, but the same isn't true of the winning side in the GE. The Tories got just over 4 out of 10 of the votes cast, with a clear majority in favour of parties articulating very different visions.

I do think some British born citizens would rather have hand outs than do a job they feel is beneath them.

You say this like it's somehow surprising or terrible.