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?

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe - if they can, why haven't they done it till now? What was preventing the British from being employed as chambermaids, cleaners, mind you, night cleaners? How many unemployed do really aspire to clean other people's toilets for living and get paid the wages that those people were paid?
They will want more money, which means more expensive services all over Britain. Or they will be told to accept the job or get their allowances and benefits cut. And if they speak up, they get in trouble because the Tories will make sure to make the new labour laws suitable for them, not for those workers.

I don't disagree with Patel though that we should stop seeing lower paid jobs as unworthy; they aren't, they're just able to be secured without formal education, they're still entirely necessary and i don't see why people who can work, choose not to?

Because in quite a lot of cases, the work available to them is some combination of unpleasant, boring, insecure, mind numbingly pointless, stupid arbitrary rules, involves being treated like shit and pays fuck all. So of course people don't want to do it. Because logic. I wouldn't. I did a lot of them whilst training for something better paid and there were a lot of downsides. And there's no getting round this.

You can try and raise the status of particular jobs and perhaps make some improvement in that respect, but when shit comes to shite it's poor pay for things that lots of humans don't want to do. The way you get more people to want to do them is to either pay more, which isn't always possible, or make them as pleasant and doable as possible.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe i don't see why people who can work, choose not to? Why is that even an option?

Its not, any one claiming JSA has to apply for work, if they deliberately screw up interviews, they lose their money.

Someone with no dependants gets about £73 on JSA, maybe help with rent, min wage pays £307 for a 37.5 week.

No one chooses to be on JSA.

This idea that there is an endless stream of fit able bodied young uk citizens itching to drive lorries, pick fruit, wipe bums and pack fish is crazy.

eeriesilence, I really don't know. I know lots of cleaners (I don't have one myself) but it's a job that is hard work - and appreciated. People who have cleaning jobs perhaps have those as it fits in with childcare/school pickup routines? The same for couriers and delivery drivers. People do those jobs. The jobs aren't 'unworthy', they just don't require a degree usually.

I think the government needs to look at the sub-set of claimants who could work and make it more accessible for them to do that. I know that I would need to work, I will always need to work and, if it came to feeding my family, I would take on whatever work I could do. I imagine many people feel that way.

Priority has to be to raise the profile and status of care work so that we have the best qualified (in experience, temperament and willingness to do the job). I know that's what Patel said but she said nothing about wage increases - just having the 'brightest and the best'... and without the renumeration and acknowledgement of the importance of the job, that will never happen.

I think the government needs to look at the sub-set of claimants who could work and make it more accessible for them to do that. I know that I would need to work, I will always need to work and, if it came to feeding my family, I would take on whatever work I could do. I imagine many people feel that way.

An important point to make here is that if your earning potential is such that you require top up benefits to live, taking on work doesn't necessarily feed your family. It can do the opposite, because UC is so shit. This certainly needs addressing.

Anyway. Why are elderly people lazing around in care homes expecting to be waited on hand and foot? They should be out working themselves.

Yes it does, MarchDaffs. I didn't vote Tory, have no interest in their manifesto as it doesn't accord with me at all, but so many people did - and did so repeatedly. I have no idea how we'd get rid of UC but I'm all in favour of that, it's a broken and shitty mechanism that doesn't benefit the people who actually need the support. I was listening to a radio programme on that this morning - carers having to jump through hoops to get their patients reassessed from PIP to UC. It's utterly horrifying.

Aren’t most Pret staff from outside the UK? I would rather work in Pret than be be care assistant if I was unemployed. I just couldn’t be a care worker.

www.pretjobs.co.uk/team-pret-roles/team-member £8.65 an hour. In London. Free food on duty though.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe - I never considered those jobs low or unworthy. Unfortunately, this is how they come out from the criteria for those who would like to stay in Britain or work in Britain as they are lower-paid. For now, that is.
What people don't realise is, that in order to make those jobs more attractive for people who for various reasons cannot/do not work, the salaries will have to increase. That, of course, means that those services will in turn become more expensive.
Also, I'm not talking about the cleaners cleaning houses. You have cleaning companies, working mostly around the clock, doing major cleaning in the night or early morning/late evening. Chambermaids in hotels, maintenance workers, all those "invisible" people who take care of your comfort when you're in a hotel or working in an office.
In order to pick up these jobs or seasonal jobs, people will have to relocate, look for special childcare arrangements, calculate whether taking the job, relocating, childcare arrangements aren't more expensive than just staying unemployed. Those people should also probably actually enjoy a bit what they are doing and not see it as a way of having job instead of having their benefits cut.
It's not as easy as just replacing one person with another and happy days.

And now it is UC, there are not so many on JSA at all. It carries sanctions. And as pointed out, the UC still tops up the shite pay, although badly. We've already got a system in place, folks! It's not enabling people any more. Now you want to effectively criminalise people for being poor? Really? Did you not have history lessons in school? Did they not teach you about The Poor Laws or The Irish Famine? Did you not realise that there was no universal suffrage, even for men, until about a hundred years ago, although only 10% of men held property? You've been failed, even worse than the Americans, who, unlike you, have solid trade deals in place, vast land space, and far, far more people.

march surely people should work to support themselves if they can?

I can’t think of anything worse than having relatives looked after people who have been forced into that job!

Do you think the eastern european do it for the love and satisfaction the job provides???? 😂
They do it for money and for the ease of getting the job. An hour work in a care home at minimum wage buys around 3-4 packets of cigarettes as an example what the GBP value is “back home”

Very few people can support themselves on £8.21 per hour min wage, which is why the govt tops up their wage, esp if part time.

It also explains why, despite record employment, tax take isn't increasing, many people aren't paying tax or very little but claiming more in working benefits.

march surely people should work to support themselves if they can?

Are you not aware that they already are? But they are in places where there is nothing but zero hours contracts and gigs and such low pay that the cost of living comes nowhere close. What do you suggest they do, magic up stable jobs? You get a zero hours contract and that employer expects you to be available 24/7 and if you can't then you might be punished with no shifts. So what are you to do, if you have 3 employers like this? Because these sorts of contracts, temp ones especially, are present even in academia, making it hard to get a flat to let.

Can't work out if this is a spoof or not.

www.thecanary.co/uk/2016/03/14/get-pensioners-pick-fruit-vegetables-fields-says-tory-minister/?fbclid=IwAR1KgxGAig58PjQJdWbt1j9PKP3-cVB6Kx2To50AY8ICIb2NvlXxhnI0qzk

We haven't imported any carers?

So all your carers are British citizens?

march surely people should work to support themselves if they can?

You can't actually be surprised that people prioritise their quality of life over your principles though? Especially when we've broken the link between working and supporting yourself, when even full time work simply doesn't cover the basic living costs of so many.

This is before we get into more complex points like not actually needing the labour of all our citizens anyway and particularly not as technology develops, and some people's labour costing more to facilitate and extract than they actually provide when performing it.

Bravo, March!

Are you including childcare in that OP And if not , why not

Or is it just elderly people you think of as second class citizens and possible collateral damage?

march surely people should work to support themselves if they can

The vast majority of people on benefits are working they just get crap pay and hours as the government allows it and need top ups..

Just a post to say those in social housing cant live away to work
They would lose their social flat as it would be classed as abandoned. And no doubt it would be the same Tory voters castigating them for not taking these jobs who would be the first to phone the HA to report said flat as empty.

Maybe not the care industry but certainly picking crops, warehouse work and in the hospitality sector which also relies on foreign unskilled labour

the first paragraph is a copy and paste of what i posted on another thread.. I did the copy part before i even started reading this thread as i knew it would also apply here, Tory voters are so predictable........< sigh>

@KenDodd it's not a spoof. I remember thinking when the item came out, "Britannia Unchained moves ever closer to becoming a reality." Almost 3 years on, I obviously wasn't wrong

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/14/tory-minister-wanted-uk-pensioners-to-be-low-wage-fruit-pickers

Maybe we can just drug all the grumpy unsuitable unemployed into being benign automotons. (Or maybe the messages on side of THAT bus already hypnotised them into being like that)

I think I'd be in the fields before I did carework. I'm not suited to carework.

"I can’t think of anything worse than having relatives looked after people who have been forced into that job!
Do you think the eastern european do it for the love and satisfaction the job provides????"

There's a big difference between E27 workers who chose to come to the UK and do those jobs
vs
UK citizens forced to do the jobs or have their benefits stopped