about this Kickstart job 'opportunity'?

[Cardamonpods]

A family member, lets call them B, has been unemployed for a few months, has attended 20 or so interviews but been unsuccessful (mainly candidates with greater experience, more local etc preferred). B has been proactive about seeking work but not had much success.

At B's last jobcentre appointment last week, they were interviewed as part of Kickstart by a couple of prospective employers, and offered a job. Great. Except:

Nothing formal was sent through about the job so as its meant to start on Monday, B contacted the employer to confirm all the details.

Despite giving B a salary range in the interview, the employer is now saying the salary will be below the bottom of that range, and possibly below the minimum wage for Bs age.

Again in the interview B was told everyone works from home 3 days a week. Again now the employer has said that won't apply to B who has to attend the office every day. This will cost a minimum of £15-20 a day in travel costs -whilst as part of Kickstart it seems this will be paid for B if B hadn't checked they wouldn't have known.

Currently B feels the entire job is all a bit smoke and mirrors. B had 3 other interviews next week (for better paying roles) which they will have to cancel as the employer insisted on a Monday start - B was hoping that it might have been possible to schedule the interviews in if working from home, as they were all local (so B could have gone at 8am and still been home for a 9am work start, or at lunch on Zoom etc but now that won't be possible - B will be travelling for 90 mins each way every day so no chance of interviews before or after work either.

I know B is keen to get back to work but this all seems a bit shit and the employers pretty shifty - AIBU?

Just to clarify Bs interview for the role was with someone from the company itself, not just a jobcentre employee, so there should bot have been any confusion about salary, working days etc .

B should tell the Jobcentre to stick it up their arse.

He hasn't even started the job yet and he is being treated like dirt - something that isn't uncommon with the Kickstart scheme, unfortunately.

What is B's situation? What type of work is he looking for, do we know why he is struggling to find employment?

Tell them you can’t start on Monday and go to the other interviews would be my advice.

The Monday start is non negotiable and B has been told they will lose benefits if they turn the role down.

B is 23. Applying for various office based roles, general admin, claims handling, accounts, logistics. No obvious reason why B isn't getting a job and no feedback given from any of the interviews which have been from a variety of the above.

The mess doesn't surprise me, but your relative is in a no win situation. If he starts the job he'll lose out on more appropriate, permanent vacancies. If he doesn't start the job he'll be sanctioned. Plus you can bet he won't be kept on once the scheme funding ends, employers are using it as a means of free labour.

My only advice is that he sends a message to his job coach detailing the interviews he has lined up next week, and asking what he should do about them.

I have been in this situation; if the salary offered is below what was advertised and discussed at interview, B can turn it down. If the role he is offered is not what he interviewed for, he can turn it down. If the role pays less than minimum wage, he can turn it down.

I went for an interview for an office manager role, made to attend by Job Centre. Was offered a job cold-calling selling mortgaes. JC initially said if I turn it down I'll loose benefits, I said job offered was not as advertised or what I interviewed for, and they agreed. Was never discussed again..

Tell B to stand his ground with this one, and look for something decent

I'd already suggested to B sending a message to the job center saying the terms were not as set out in the interview so glad to hear that's the right thing to do. It's such a shame because B was initially quite excited about the role, it was working in a big city rather than our local town etc, but as each day passes he's started feeling more and more let down.

If the role is less than minimum wage it is likely to be because it is an Apprenticeship where there is a lower Minimum wage rate for the first year of training.

If it isn't an apprenticeship then they HAVE to pay minimum wage for his age.

If I was B I’d try going for other roles, hopefully job centre will prefer him to be off books for good with decent job than do this kickstart then be back there in 6months or however long it is. If it’s only been a few months they should have bit more flexibility if someone’s been unemployed over a year and playing the better job card there be less sympathy and support. But yes catch 22 for sanction but there do seem to be many kickstart “jobs” around so worse comes to it he should be able get another one.

It's not an apprenticeship. However I've just checked Bs calculation and it is over minimum wage but by pennies, B hadn't realised the salary was based on a 37.5 hour rather than 40 hour week. Either way it's still £2k a year less than the figure stated in interview.

The kickstart thing apparently only ran to 1 March so the job centre were really pressurising them to take the roles, I assume because there is a quota or something. After he had the interview B mentioned to his job coach that he had other interviews lined up with various companies (which he'd applied for himself) and the job coach rubbished the other organizations and really strongly promoted the company offering the Kickstart role...B isn't as cynical as me and took this as meaning the Kickstart job was a better opportunity. He's now starting to see it really isn't.

The jobcentre should be made aware of these chancers. My daughter had similar issues with unethical and possibly illegal behavior from 'kickstart' employer. She wasn't penalised

I think that you could support B with a way to both take the kickstarter job and also attend the interviews so that hes not turning down the role until he has something else lined up.

Are any of them remote? If so B takes his lunch at that time and organises to be in a very quiet cafe for the interview. Are any of them on the same day? B calls in with a travel problem that day and offers to work from home (not great I know but needs must. . .) Perhaps he contacts the least likely one and asks if it could be moved to the same day as another one etc etc.

To be honest, I am hearing more and more people finding jobs that are advertised as being remote or hybrid but when it comes down to it they aren’t. So that part doesn’t surprise me.

However, everything else does sound concerning and they should really talk to someone from the jobcentre.

Hopefully, the jobcentre will be understanding and they will not sanction them if they do not take the role.

Although, it’s worrying if they are pushing people into these roles

B starts the job on Monday tells new employer he will be out during the time needed to interview in different jobs.
He goes in each day and gets up and leaves for the interviews.

Outcome will be
a)the job lets him go so its not him rejecting job amd he's back looking for aother new job.
b) he gets a different job offer and proper contract from one of the interviews and gives notice to job
c) he gets no offers remains in the job gains experience and continues to job hunt.

If an employer shows no honesty or loyalty at the start of a contract it will only go downhill.

He will not be penalised for turning down a kickstart job if it is not suitable as Kickstart jobs are not mandatory and should not be part of B's commitments. All Kickstart jobs are paid for by the government so will not be less than minimum wage. The jobcentre will pay for 3 months of travel to a Kickstart placement but B must ask his work coach.

Has B had a contract yet? That should iron out a lot of the queries. Without a contract B can't start the role on Monday.

No actual contract sent through yet! B has asked for one but no response. Salary is confirmed as being about £5 per week above min wage (£2k less than the figure discussed in interview). No working from home -even though every other employee works from home at least 3 days per week. They'll review that if they keep him on at 6 months.

If he does end up taking the job, although it's good he will get travel
paid for the first 3 months, paying out nearly £100 a week for travel is going to be a big hit to his salary after that.

I don't trust these kickstart jobs as far as I can throw them. I find that often it's the worst companies to work for that take these on, because it's of no cost to them, they get some wage slave for free from the government for 6 months then ditch when they have to pay the wage out of their own pocket.

That'd the suspicion here I think. The company have some very expensive offices but are clearly saving money by paying min wage and using cheap labour. It's such a shame as after 3 months out of work B was really excited about working again until all this stuff came up.

That is so annoying. Where I work we are advertising kickstart roles and they are genuine pieces of short term work that need doing of around 25 hours per week they they are willing to train the person for. They will be eligible to work hybrid like the rest of the team.

The other side of kickstart we interviewed for somone in our charity shop via kickstart the best candidate started at 9 am worked til 12 o clock went for her lunch and didnt come back, no contact no reason for her disapearance nothing and while she was in the shop she was chatting smiley happy to do what was needed so we are all puzzled as to what happened

I know that there will be slack employees as much as there are shit employers.

It just feels with this scheme like young people keen to work are being taken advantage of, although I guess that's nothing new 🤷🏻‍♀️