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?

I wouldn't want my DS to be looked after by someone who is a carer just because they were forced into the job.

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

No, they choose to come to the UK and these jobs are the only ones, apart from cleaning, that are available to them, especially for women.

So, in a way, they are also forced to do those jobs.

Whatever you think about stopping benefits unless people take up the hard / unpleasant jobs available,

forcing people to become carers is also forcing vulnerable people to receive personal care from those who are probably not suited or even safe for the job

It is the worst possible choice for what would effectively be conscription of the unemployed

So ridiculous that it is probably a squirrel

• and the actual policy when it is formally drawn up will exclude carers, armed forces and the emergency services from the jobs the unemployed will be forced into

Fruit picking, cleaning, retail .... will be in the allowed categories

Thanks euromillionswinner! There aren't that many people genuinely choosing to be unemployed and benefit reliant anyway, under-employment is much more numerically significant (speaking as a part timer) but it amazes me that people are surprised by the inclination.

Also, the idea of it being more ethical and desirable for people to be working is something we're inevitably going to have to examine more critically as technology further develops. Even the Protestant work ethic types.

"No, they choose to come to the UK and these jobs are the only ones, apart from cleaning, that are available to them, especially for women."

No, they had the choices to stay home,
or go to another EU country,
or like hundreds of thousands of other EU workers, male & female, in the UK choose other jobs:
pick fruit & veg / become nursery workers / hospitality industry ....

The unemployed - if this scheme happens - would have only the choice of care work or no money, as their benefits would be stopped.

I have worked as a carer for the last four years and I can honestly say it’s the most difficult job I have ever done.For the OP’s information I have a degree.The hours suit my lifestyle and family life.I can categorically state that it isn’t for everyone.Our skills are undervalued and the OP is naive to think that just anyone can do this job.

As an HCA I find the OP insulting. In fact I find it insulting that care work is still regarded as unskilled work.

Not just anyone can do this job.
You have to want to do it; you need a caring manner, empathy with your patients; common sense; in many cases you need endless patience & a strong stomach. To be physically & mentally fit.
You also have to be good at team work, problem solving & using initiative.
You have to be intelligent enough to take observations in hospitals & to know when to escalate to senior staff, in the community you often have to give out medications. You may also carry out extended roles such as taking bloods & ecgs.
You are usually expected to complete a 'care certificate' as a minimum but you can also be expected to complete NVQs.
You will have to complete hours of mandatory training & be at risk of disciplinary if for example you carry out manual handling incorrectly.
You will have to cope with patients you are close to dying in front of you & other patients swearing at you & being physically abusive.

All for under £10 an hour if not minimum wage.

So you think it's fair for a Eastern European woman, who is poor, and whose only option to earn some money is working as a carer to do the low paid and hard work, but it cannot possibly be expected from an unemployed British person even though they will be wiping British arses?

Same choice, money or no money.

My mum has one to one care, sorry OP you are very wrong... I’d rathe4 have someone who want the job to care for her when I can’t not just because they are forced to.

LilyJade... my thoughts exactly and if I wasn’t so tired from working three twelve hour shifts back to back, I may have said the same.

If you put someone into conscripted labour simply for being unemployed, they may well start thinking along the lines that they have earned the right to commit the crime afterwards!

Hey Op Priti I'm sure enforced labour of all those lazy dole scroungers ( sick, disabled, students, elderly) will be announced by your government very soon. Meanwhile aren't you worried about all those skilled workers coming over and taking all our skilled work ?

I've only read the heading, but IMO I really hope not. I say this as a person who has had relatives in 'care'.

What @Foslady says. My Dad's careers are all foreigners. I am amazed at what a good job they do. Not man people could do what they do.

No one will have time to do any skilled work, we’ll all be knackered filling up the low skilled ones.

Jeez, why stop at the unemployed? I read earlier about elderly Japanese works using exoskeleton suits to enable then to carry on doing physical work when their bodies aren't able any more. Why not conscript all those 'scroungers' on Pension Credit too, eh?

Or, you know, not. Can't think of anything worse than being cared for by someone who really does not wish to be doing it frankly. Plus not everyone has the ability or mental capacity to be responsible for caring for others, even if physically able and willing to do it. I imagine a few of those unemployed people may have criminal records meaning you wouldn't want them looking after your granny too (not suggesting that unemployed people are all unemployed because they are thick criminals before anyone jumps on me, I've been unemployed recently myself, just painting out the stupidity of the OP's suggestion!).

So you think it's fair for a Eastern European woman, who is poor, and whose only option to earn some money is working as a carer to do the low paid and hard work, but it cannot possibly be expected from an unemployed British person even though they will be wiping British arses?

You really cannot compare someone motivated enough to move countries with someone who has been unemployed for xx number of years.
Its also a bit insulting to think that only "poor" europeans do the care work, at my DDs care agency, there are plenty who did similar roles in their home country and whose partners earn a high wage but they work in care because they want to & they enjoy it

The immigrants who picked fruit were desperate to gain a foot hole in what we take for granted. To pay for the provision of utilities, one man told me it was thousands of pounds and each 3 months they were gaining something, better conditions like water, electric, etc. The same with those in the warehouses ao.com are going to suffer drastically, much of their workforce.

What @Foslady says. My Dad's careers are all foreigners. I am amazed at what a good job they do. Not man people could do what they do.

And that's wonderful, but why is that it's foreign people who do that good a job? What makes them so suitable to do it? Why can't more British people do it?

Its also a bit insulting to think that only "poor" europeans do the care work, at my DDs care agency, there are plenty who did similar roles in their home country and whose partners earn a high wage but they work in care because they want to & they enjoy it

Yeah, right. How many, 50%? 70%? They all have a high earning partner but enjoy care home work?

If believing that makes you fell better, then that's ok. Keep believing.

@ChardonnaysDistantCousin

What do you do for a living Chardonnay? Could you do care work? I couldn't, don't have the temperament, couldn't work with young children either, hats off to those who do though. I know some people do love it.

I don't know. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. I've certainly had my share of menial jobs.

But I find the reliance on foreign care workers very odd. Why is that they can be caring but British unemployed workers cannot be expected to so to? Why do most posters insist that they, the foreign workers, love it? Why don't they see that there is as little choice for them as it is for the natives?

I really shouldn't be surprised though, after all Brexit was voted in.

I did care & cleaning work at a home for the elderly during one summer holiday at uni (back in the 1970s)

I've recently retired, but I remember that time as the hardest 3 months work I've ever done, physically & emotionally
The frail elderly residents were so vulnerable, especially those with dementia

They are the ones I'd be most concerned about, at the mercy of basically conscripted carers
They have no choice in their carers, so it is up to "society" - us - not to allow changes that would make them even more vulnerable

The EU nationals who came to the UK to work in care are a quite different population to the British unemployed OP mentions chardonnay. By definition they're people who are capable of doing it and sufficiently willing that being given the opportunity was enough, rather than requiring the coercion OP suggests. In that respect, they're like the British citizens who are currently doing it.

What OP is talking about, however, is extending this work to people sufficiently unwilling or incapable that even the tightening of the benefits system has so far not forced them into the industry. No doubt there are equivalent groups in poor Eastern European countries too, but the point is that they aren't working in our care industry and nobody is suggesting they should. You're comparing British people with very significant barriers to being employable with other EU nationals who don't.

Chardonnay your posts on this thead dont surprise me at all You have the same contempt for working class people as XR do.

Whats the matter? Are they not trendy enough.