To ask for opinions on the 'Get Britain Working' white paper?

[Locutus2000]

Now it's out in full?

Here we go again. This is repackaged up and trotted out occasionally.

The word help was removed from the DWP long ago. They've got no intention of helping people into work.
Their main aim is to employ little Hitlers at jobcentres to stop people claiming and they will go to any lengths to do it.

Even if it means sanctioning people and starving them, they will do it. People must be punished for being poor How daré they try and claim.

Governments all round the world need to start thinking creatively and move on from this tired way of thinking. I can't see it being long before AI replaces most of us. There won't be enough jobs no matter how willing people are to work. There needs to be another way.

It would make zero sense to go after people in situations, such as you have described. They are not doing any work because they don't wish to, they have been, or are seriously ill, in a position not to have to work, and are not claiming anything anyway.

I think the numbers just don’t stack up, we can’t afford so much econic inactivity. There are 872’000 NEETS in the UK. PP kids experience of trying to find a job is horrible, I can well imagine some just give up. If there are kids out there trying their damndest to get into work we should be straining every sinew to get them into the workforce.

I’m increasingly worried that there will come a point where the system collapses.

I know @YYURYYUCICYYUR4ME excellent post. I have been around over quite a few governments (labour and conservative) and it really is the same tweaking about and achieving absolutely nothing each time but costing millions. It's like a game really for the elected members.

Practical solutions would involve looking at the current barriers to work, and figuring out how to remove them. So, a real barrier for women returning after maternity leave is the cost of childcare. Set up proper state-funded nurseries with proper training and career progression for the staff, incentivise employers with >50 employees to provide a creche on-site, I'm sure there are plenty of other options that much cleverer people than me could come up with.

Many (most?) disabled people want to work but employers are resistant. There used to be a project called Remploy that provided work for people who couldn't work in conventional workplaces. Re-open Remploy.

Prioritise those who do want to work at this stage.

I did read the other day that there are about 1.4 million unemployed and only 900k jobs

not sure if those figures are still relevant

Where are all these care jobs going to come from? Farm jobs? In London? Farmers expect people who work to live in caravans on the farm get up at the crack of dawn can't see any single parents be able to do that

If they really want to get to net zero they should encourage work from home jobs less people on the roads equal less pollution

Exactly. How many employers are going to want to hire someone who has a serious disability or chronic health issues,that may well necessitate them keep taking time off work sick? Also,many disabled/sick people have been out of the work place for years,and employers are nearly always reluctant to hire such people. I am disabled and have several health issues. I struggle with just day to day living,a lot of the time I find it exhausting. I know for a fact that being forced out to work would exacerbate my health problems to the extent that I wouldn't last a month in a job.

Work friend ”partner” a non- worker. He likes to brag he was a highly skilled tool maker (not Starmers dad, ok?). He says he made precision tools but can’t find that work now. He has not worked in legal work for 25 yrs. Perfectly fit & healthy but can’t work. He has done odd jobs for “folding” (folding money cash so doesn’t impact his benefits) - security, some basic builder stuff on occasion. Has 7 kids with 5 women.
when he has had to get a job to continue his dole or whatever he gets, he agrees to the training, attends, then when it’s time to work he acts crazy or has a major accident. So gets fired.
He was driving bus for a while which he tolerated, he could smoke weed with other drivers because they drug test-But not for marijuana!!

He was professional at using his intellect to do just the minimum required. A 100 percent drain on the system, all the kids w single mums, the never working and being high driving the bus.
He talked a lot, a lot about all the ways he could scam - a proud British man. IMO he should have been in prison.

@Moonlightstars I can totally understand this as applying for jobs myself to no response (I have a job too) and all over LinkedIn all you see is people applying and not getting responses.

I don't understand what has happened to the job market? Everyone claims to be short staffed but doesn't seem to engage with applicants or want to recruit.

It's absolutely baffling.

This doesn't answer the "never worked" category but it does show how hard it is.

When I was a skint single parent, I would have been better off not working as benefits would have paid me more than my salary minus the cost of my commute, mortgage and childcare.

This is always going to be a contributing factor that those in power chose to ignore. It simply doesn’t pay for many (and not even just single) parents to work. Until you address the shortage of childcare and the fact that many employers don’t want to accommodate earlier finish and later start times (because even with wrap around care you still struggle with a 9-5 with travel on top) nothing will change for families.

Many years of benefit sanctions haven't reduced unemployment to negligible levels.

They still seem about right. So there aren't actually jobs for everyone anyway. It's also not clear if the vacancies are full time either.

At the risk of bringing Brexit into this discussion, there is a reason why turnout was so high in the DE sociodemographic. More than one generation of British youngsters have been let down because it was easier to employ from abroad. When we opened up the jobs market to Eastern Europe, there were people coming over who were completely overqualified for the jobs they applied for and got. An 18 year old straight out of college with no experience or a 25 year old qualified accountant, for example, willing to start at the bottom to get a toehold in the country.

There was a hotel I visited every year in Oxfordshire that basically ran on 16-18 year old kids from the village working there in holidays and weekends. It was quintessentially English with really lovely, well turned out, eloquent youngsters adding to the vibe. Within 5 years, the whole place was Polish. This has happened up and down the country. Kids can't get experience in anything.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Brexit, allowing freedom of movement between countries with such disparate economies has been a disaster. This plan sounds as though Labour are at least aware that not investing in British youngsters is no longer an option.

Also I do feel sympathy for people working in job centres even if they aren't as helpful as we would like or trained. The levels of abuse they receive is ridiculous. My kids nursery was next door to one and there was always someone going in ranting or being removed for violence.

My son has severe mh difficulties and hasn't worked for about 6 years and I can't see him ever working again. He's mid 30s.
We have recently had a council support worker trying to "support" him. One of the things she asked was what had caused his problems, he told her one of the things was severe childhood trauma, I was absolutely annoyed about this and told her while I appreciated her help (sort of) she was not a medical professional and shouldn't have asked. She has decided to sign him off her list as she can't convince him to get the doctor to change his tablets. Does she not think we've tried these different strategies?

The welfare system has been used to terrify people for years.

The figures of long term unemployed Vs the perception is very very different.

"Millions of people have never worked"
I'd trotted out all the time. The facts say that long term unemployment is actually closer to 300k than 1 million, or they were last I looked.

They will use "tightening welfare" to beat the poorest in society to make those who are comfortable feel better and it'll save but a tea spoon of sand on a beach.

Nothing will change.

And if they think forcing mentally or physically unwell people into low paying menial jobs is going to help, they're wrong. People will be hurt, people will kill themselves, things will not improve.

I’m unemployed as I couldn’t cope with the bully store manager and his general nastiness. He has made 10 staff leave in 6 months. I was 9th! He made a similar number of staff leave due to his behaviour.

We raised grievances and came to nothing. Why wasn’t he dismissed? Head office thinks he’s wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful at making staff leave, increase waste and other things you don’t describe a wonderful manager.

Had enough of crying etc.

If I didn’t have the manager I would still be working. There was no jobs in stores nearby

I know i think charities now run like businesses uts a shame as you used to be able to do that as a way of getting experience

33% of men have a criminal record. Less than 1 in 4 of them will ever get work. So 25% of men will not get work. Ever. This needs to change, but for the men themselves and for society that has to fund them. But actually I suspect most people are happy to think that criminals continue to suffer after release and would probably like to stop their benefits altogether.

I didn't know those figures, that's high, quite eye opening that

That will include people like me who are "economically inactive" but not claiming out of work benefits. I'm in my 50s, I gave up a career 20 years ago to care for a disabled child then had another child, also disabled. I still care for them as adults and while Ds1 can be left to himself to some extent Ds2 needs constant supervision and my life seems to revolve around endless laundry. If I needed to go back to work, the hours I could work are very limited, I have no recent experience and I have no references.

There has been a systematic change as quite a lot of employers now will employ people that have been in prison. Look at timpsons, there's a few other ones as well. I think there needs to be people who actually do coach people who do what they used to do back in the day ring up the employers for you. And encourage them, take you on, they used to give money for these employmers to take people on as well. New deal do you remember that under Blair?

Uou would be an ideal carer i have carers that come in and many just do mornings ir tea time shifts