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?

No, I don’t have any contempt for working people. I work my arse off every day.

I don’t understand why people think some jobs are good enough for foreign workers, but not good enough for British people.

Of course the foreign workers, EU or otherwise, have a choice

• both in which country they go to and which jobs they take

They would choose jobs they think they can do and tolerate
They moved for a better life
I worked many years in Germany for the same reason - I made the choice

Few people can afford not to work, at least unless they have a partner who earns enough
So in a sense most of us are "forced" to work
We work for money, not love

An unemployed person, conscripted into care work, has no choice - other than to starve
Of course they would be bitterly resentful, far more than someone who chose the work

Maybe we could roll this idea out to those resting at her majesty’s pleasure. Let them earn their keep.

I don’t understand why people think some jobs are good enough for foreign workers, but not good enough for British people.

I think you might have that the other way around. It might be that some British people aren't 'good enough' for some jobs, rather than the jobs aren't good enough for some British people.

I think there's a lot in what Chardonnay says, i.e
(1) about the patronising attitude to foreign workers :"of course they must sooo love it..."
(2)the idea that folk already doing it are all devoted.... :?

Also, I think that some people may find they actually like it if they have to try it ,like many student nurses on a temporary placement have done....I speak as one who's actually had experience of this

But definitely this is a greatly underappreciated workforce : people shouldn't criticise when they've never done it themselves , as the Media does all too often

YABU

Care work is hard. If this is a thread about lazy people claiming benefits as a career choice and forcing them in to work, then care work is not the profession to force them in to. It wouldn't be fair on the clients.

Same with waitressing etc. These are jobs that require someone to be comfortable being client facing and it isn't for everyone. What is the point in forcing someone into a job if they are going to be shit at it and make the other employees job even harder? We need to accept that some people cannot work because of unfortunate circumstances. We also need to realise that there are some people that are capable of working, but it's better that they don't as they have a terrible work ethic and would do more harm than good.

Are you Dominic Cummings?

It's not about the nationality of the care workers;
it's about the choice to work in care vs being forced to do so by having benefits stopped

It would be equally outrageous - and dangerous - if the proposal were to force 1 million foreign residents in the UK to work in care

Both the workers and the care recipients deserve better than conscription

I worked as a career and loved it but gave it up as the hours with my kids didnt work. I currently dont work but going back to care work no matter how much I loved it would not work for me now.

I'm sick of the idea that everyone has to work nonstop no matter what. How dare anyone stop working for study, caring for family, or get over trauma, or just being shit at working. Nah, shove them up a chimney, that'll learn em. Fact is, of 8 million people in this country who are 'economically inactive ', to quote Priti Vacunt, they are a mix of students, carers (unpaid unless you think £65 a week is a good payment for 35+ hours per week caring duties) and long term unemployed people. I don't want any of them being harassed into work, what is the fucking point? I knew someone that happened to, low functioning guy, forced into a job, screwed his life up. Definitely cost more to the public purse than just leaving him the fuck alone on the dole. Not to mention his life is fucked, he lost what little he had for the ideology of people like the OP. The Chinese government would be proud of that shit, All hail the Workers' Collective!! Full employment! Continuous Improvements! Last phrase is western management bullshit. Wait till they come for you and yours, then let's chat.

@BigChocFrenzy nailed it

The problem with chardonnay's approach is that she's conflating British unemployed with British workers per se. It's not that British people cant do the work, it's that people who already aren't are probably not a good choice (note that even Priti Patel is talking about the economically inactive, so even the government aren't talking about filling the care home vacancies with long term unemployed).

The OPs proposal is to replace new entrant EU workers who didn't have to be actively coerced and had some level of choice with the least employable British people who have less agency. It makes no more sense than suggesting we replace capable Polish workers in Poland with British long term unemployed.

A pp asked if you have ever been unemployed, op, be really interested to know about that and if you have safety nets? Cos life looks a lot different when you are on your own, utterly.

That's assuming they'd all pass a DBS check

My DP was made redundant just before Christmas - he is highly skilled, well qualified, and works/worked in a very niche role as a high earner. He’s got some freelance work which is plugging the gap, but otherwise would currently be unemployed.

He can be extremely impatient, has a bad back, and doesn’t drive. I love him very much, but he would be the worst possible person for a care role. I don’t even much like him “caring” for me when I am sick with a minor illness!

This is a preposterous idea. I’ve not read beyond the first page, but am hoping it was a joke.

@gonetoget you avin a giraffe? Prisoner slave labour looking after vulnerable people, that is your solution? Genius, what could possibly go wrong?

When I hear the phrase economically inactive I think of people who are choosing to work very little because they don't need much money to live on, personally I would take a frugal/basic lifestyle over working in a care home, I have done a little bit of that kind of work, it wasn't for me. Everyone wants good care are to be taken of them when they are elderly and at a reasonable price but very few of us would want to actually do that work

@ChardonnaysDistantCousin

So all your carers are British citizens? Yes all of them. All of our staff are. I haven't had anyone even apply who isn't a british citizen. We've had plenty of residents from other countries though. We're situated near a medium sized city but the home is in a village.

Chardonnay, it's not that you have contempt for workers, it's that you don't listen, you have no fucking idea. Your experience is not the only one that exists. Until you try to understand that, we're wasting time on your arrogance.

OP, are you the newest member of the neurodiverse think tank?

I have no idea of what?

The patronising way foreign care workers are treated?

The assumption that they all must love a job that not many British workers choose to do?

No, I don’t see it. Sorry if I’m arrogant that way.

Why can't more British people do it?

Did you not realise how that sort of migration works? People are able to come here due to free movement and because the money was worth more and they were able to do it often alone with no childcare or family obligations, to send the money home. It doesn't matter then, if you don't get 40 hours as you've got not rent on a let flat, you can bunk up and pay £50/week to rogue landlord, you have only yourself to feed.

It doesn't work so well when you are trying to pay your share of a properly let flat or with a young one or two to feed.

When I hear the phrase economically inactive I think of people who are choosing to work very little because they don't need much money to live on,

And yet when Patel does, she specifically refers to, again, the retired, students and those with caring responsibilities. A very important mention.

So Patel is of course being disingenuous, she uses the phrase 'inactive' so as to conjure in our minds the lazy and the feckless, the truth is these people are active they have a lot of their plates and are unable to take on paid work because they are already burdened buy unpaid work which they are duty bound to do.
Or they are busy studying or they are retired because they are older and not really up to doing much in the way of work aside from household chores and daily living activities with hopefully some recreation time in there

Patel is of course being disingenuous

NO! Our Priti! Surely not!