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?

Yes, I don't understand why anyone thinks a Brexit orchestrated and executed by the right of the Conservative Party is going to lead to better conditions for workers. It wont. It was never supposed to. They told us that when they talked about greater flexibility from the workforce, and they're telling us now when they mention 'encouraging' the economically inactive.

This would all be great, but the Tories have essentially told us how they intend to fill the vacancies and it doesn't involve any of the things you mention. It was never going to.

^This.

Sure. I used to do care work, I need more work, I'd be happy to do it.

I have SPD, so can't do any lifting, pushing wheelchairs or standing around. Some days I can't walk very far at all. Can't do sweeping or hoovering or sitting on the floor. I'd need to sit down to do more washing up than a few cups, for example.

Never been able to afford to learn to drive so I can't drive clients around or take a role where I need to drive from one client to another.

I'm a single parent to a child too young for school holiday clubs (they all start at age 5 and he's summer born), and my family is all dead, so I pretty much need term time only work unless you can find a childminder place for him (like hen's teeth here), or the work pays well enough to fund agency care for him though all school holidays. After school club is £9 a day too, and currently has no spaces.

I also need to work somewhere I can actually get to, without driving, from the school. Bearing in mind that walking is painful and I've no choice but to walk half a mile between home and school to drop DS off, I'd need work no more than another half a mile walk from the school or on a direct bus route.

This includes the whole city centre, so not wildly unrealistic, but does rule out a lot of places that just aren't served well by busses here.

I'm going to university in September. It's a part time course so I'll still technically be partly economically "inactive". But will then need to find a care work job with the above restrictions that also fits in a couple of hours a day in between my lectures and the school run.

I would genuinely love you to find me a suitable job please. I can send my location by PM if needed. Thanks.

Not RTFT but you're being massively unreasonable. One of the reasons that some care homes are not what they should be and people are scared of moving to them is that people are being forced to take jobs
As carers without having the necessary temperament. You may believe it's an unskilled job that anyone can do but it's not.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/21/priti-patel-hostile-environment

I don't think care worker is suitable as you need certain skills as previous posters have said.
However your idea as a whole is awesome with a few tweaks.
Jobs that don't require a specific skill set should be offered to people on JSA, they would get to pick one from a list of a few and keep their benefit. With a opportunity to keep a permanent position they were good at the job.

I employed a guy once who deliberately started personal issues in the workplace. Showed no interest in doing the job and deliberately failed his probation. It was afterwards I found out that he had to go on interviews and prove as much to keep receiving his JSA but hadn't actually wanted the job. He just wanted the money from the government and to spend time on his hobby. He was surprised he got the job. I was new to management at the time but after speaking to others in my field I found out that it's actually more common than I thought.

OP, have you ever worked as a care worker?

Have you ever had to place your trust in a care worker to care for your nearest and dearest when they are at their most vulnerable?

Finally, is your name Priti?

YANBU to expect those who can work to want to work rather than not work but not everyone is a suitable care worker. However, there will be other jobs similarly affected- in the NHS, on farms, in warehouses etc. I think anyone able to be employed in these posts should want to do them and have to do them rather than live on benefits. If that means the benefits system has to to up the wages they earn to the same level as their benefits, I would support that.

To be a carer you need to pass a DBS check. Many people in that figure will have been charged with offences and served time in prison (hence why they are struggling with unemployment).

Would you like someone who has been in prison to see you naked or wipe your bum? Or have access to your home and medication?

@Sundance5, surely that depends what they went into prison for. Your post almost implies that ex-cons don't deserve any rehabilitation or chances at work, and should be cast out of society.

Yanbu to expect people to work.

@ItIsWhatItIsInnit It's one thing to give ex offenders a second chance. It's another thing to give them a second chance working with society's most vulnerable individuals.

People on job seekers do have to take available jobs, or at least attend interviews. If they don’t then they are sanctioned. And imo the care sector needs a total overhaul, as the problem we have is care workers are mostly on minimum age and therefore the roles are taken mainly by uneducated people who really don’t make the best carers. There needs to be more training and higher salaries to attract people who at least have the intelligence needed to care for the vulnerable amongst us.

Not everyone who is unemployed would be suitable. You need to be physically fit,like people,and have empathy and tolerance,for a start. Also,if you're visiting people at home to care for them,you need to be able to drive,as there may be sizeable distances between your patients.
Aside from the comments made by Boris Johnson about drawing on the unemployed to fill the vacancies in the care sector,I find it rather worrying that he also mentioned disabled people being suitable! I was like. As a disabled person myself,I struggle to care for myself properly sometimes,let alone anyone else! I certainly wouldn't be able to lift someone,or help them to bathe,or shower. I can barely lift a full kettle. I worry that targeting disabled people us going to make the DWP ESA assessments even more likely to find disabled people 'fit for work' when they really are not

Is this a Priti Patel's latest scheme - get an army of resentful conscripts to undertake a role that needs compassion, empathy and patience for the people most in need of care?

Wow.

Yes, i wonder if she plans to do the same for childcare.

@ItIsWhatItIsInnit how would you suggest overhauling the current system of DBS checking?

Of course people with convictions require rehabilitation. This is why we have the probation service for when people return to the community.

DBS checks are carried out on people wishing to be employed in positions of trust in the care sector. This is to best protect the most vulnerable people in our communities from being abused by ruling out anybody who may have harmed others in the past (which has been proven or admitted to in court). Of course this doesn't protect them from people who haven't yet been convicted (hence all the abuse cases we see).

Could we perhaps not look to other types of employment for rehabilitation?

YABU. Not all job sekers are able-bodied. There is such a thing as being too "well" to be on ESA but not able to handle long hours, physically strenuous work, stressful work?

care working is a wonderful job but not for everyone. I could not push a wheelchair, lift someone, dress them etc.... I need help standing and walking myself.

Why can't the government do a "Windrush" type thing and advertise positions to workers from abroad? Leaving the EU doesn't mean we need to lose so many carers- there are other partsof the world who might want to come here to work? I can sort of understand putting some limits on uncontrolled immigration but we need skilled workers and I believe those form abroad who are experienced care workers would be an asset to our country.

Or Britain should just give care workers, fruit pickers etc a decent living wage to start with, then the British would want to do those jobs (if they are able)

we British aren't workshy. we just expect a decent living wage.

If you receive UC and don’t attend interviews etc you are sanctioned, that’s interviews at the job center and interviews for jobs.

Why can't the government do a "Windrush" type thing and advertise positions to workers from abroad?
Lots of care agencies already do that. So a lot of the taxes that you pay for social care end up being spent on endless recruitment of carers from places such as Australia and South Africa to be trained for a week (also paid for with your taxes) then overworked and underpaid until they move on. This way, they avoid the need to provide workers with any sort of rights, stability or possibility of career progression. They also avoid the carers forming a relationship with clients that could end up with the agency being cut out and losing its share (nearly half, in my experience) of what the client pays.
The downside of that is that you get a lot of inexperienced carers, or worse, carers who have been working for decades and still don't understand the most basic infection control, such as washing your hands between blowing your nose and preparing food.

I suspect there are plenty of British nationals who would be very good carers, but they need jobs that pay at least minimum wage for the hours worked, and that won't see them sacked on the flimsiest excuse (to avoid them gaining any sort of rights) once they've been working for a couple of years.

Absolutely not care work is one of the hardest job going ( 22 years experience so I know what I’m talking about) u need to be a special kind of person to be a good care worker just putting unemployed people in this to lower unemployment is not the answer it’s the people that resent the job that can become abusers

How patronising care work is really hard work, needs certain personal characteristics and an abundance of patients.
The main reason this country can’t get enough careers is the appalling pay and attitudes like yours that anyone can do it. I suggest you try it for a month and see if you still feel the same.