How many jobs per week am I expected to apply for on universal credit

[jisak]

My youngest has turned 3 so I am now looking for work. It's my first meeting tomorrow to check im doing my commitments.

I can only work 10 hours per week. I've applied for 15 jobs so far

How many should I be applying for?

It is hard to find many 10 hour jobs in my local area and within school hours. I can also only travel 20 mins agreed with my work coach

I'm so scared I get sanctioned

Why can't your youngest do full days in nursery - then you'll have a genuine chance of finding a job and moving yourself on in life?

I knew you’d get a hard time OP. People do not know your circumstances. Unless you had a secure job before you was pregnant it’s not as straight forward as just returning to work at 12 months. You get trapped in a cycle, where you have had to claim benefits, and then the jobs potentially available to you are minimum wage, with the added stress of needing childcare in place before getting a job, but not actually being able to secure any childcare, because you don’t have a job.

As a single Mum on benefits, getting f a full time job and full time childcare
place at the same time is pretty much impossible and also a huge leap. In reality, most people in this situation would chose to work less and work around their children. People that say they wouldn’t, have never been in that situation. Pride and ‘not wanting the tax payer to pay’ for you doesn’t come into it. It’s very different when you have career prospects, a partner.

OP I’m not saying that’s this is your situation, but just an example. I was in your shoes, I didn’t work for 10 years, I went back to college when my youngest started school and it was the best thing I ever did.

UP TO 85% you are not guaranteed to get anywhere near 85% and you need to be able to pay in advance not every jobcentre likes giving you money from the flexible support fund starting low like OP they will need less support to get started off and can increase when they are able

Try care work if your able to they can be flexible if you get the right agency and some take on walking staff during school hours

This thread is awful and must be quite disheartening for the op. As those who are more knowledgeable have said it's not so much about how many jobs you apply for but the time you spend searching and the quality of your applications. I would take all the help you can get in terms of having your advisor work with you on your CV to make sure you are highlighting all of your transferable skills. I hope you find a job soon.

This is exactly why I rarely post about my own circumstances on here, because Ive found myself being one of of those looked down on ‘scroungers’ due my personal situation. Doesn’t matter that I went to university, that I worked, that I had children in a relationship where the other parent was working a job that covered our bills. Now I’m a single parent to high needs children who wouldn’t dare ask advice about how to reenter the workplace with my years of empty CV. I’d be ripped apart. The op is making that first step, I hope she finds something that works for her situation.

I do think a 10 hour job within 20 mins of your front door is a bit unlikely tbh, but I can see the catch 22 of it all. What work did you do before you had him, OP- any contacts there who might be able to help?

@Tubetrain do you think it's that easy when not in an established career to get a job that covers childcare? Even with government help she'd have to pay up front at first.

She isn't choosing this though. This is her only option as I imagine she couldn't afford to pay for full time childcare if she has a full time job (even with government help you'd need to pay it up front).

I work for the council (in a school) and we are desperate (like majorly!) for people to fill the numerous 5/10/12/15 hour school time/term time jobs we have! There are literally loads and casual roles as well. We just can’t fill them! Usually as they applicants have been told they need to do more than those hours or lose money!! I work 13.75 hours a week and take home almost 900 a month as well… so it is possible.
OP go on your councils website, find the jobs bit and have a look. There will be loads on there. Even if it’s a casual role… these can lead to permanent positions which would then be perfect for when your little one starts school as your “feet would be under the table” as it was!!

Sounds a pretty slack system. I returned to work after twelve months maternity leave and dc went to a childminder 12 hours per day.

I was responsible for my own bills, how do you pay yours? Do you live with parents?

On JSA I was expected to show I was applying or doing courses for equivalent of full time work. In reality this meant showing them the jobs I was applying for (screen shots were OK) or telling them the courses I did.

I think finding a job that is 2 hours a day will be very very hard. Most I know doing very short hours do it over one or two days a week.

I think lots of women reading this post would feel bewildered. To choose work hours around school runs? What a luxury. I think that some people on benefits and top-up benefits have a better quality of life in terms of time spent with the children, than career women or just normal working women. Makes you think

the child is nursery age so no school runs. It's a luxury for some of us to have a supportive partner, a full time job that pays enough to cover all reasonable outgoings and a working vehicle that gets you from a to b as quickly as possible. Not everyone is just able to just manage when children are young.

As for better quality of life, well, yeah, please try it sometime. My poor kids were first in childcare and last out for years and years whilst I worked. As young adults they appreciate it but will tell you those years when they were younger were incredibly hard, resulted in much unpleasantness from their peers ('doesn't your mum care about you? she always leaves you in afterschool club right to the end') and a huge sense of abandonment from both their parents. If I could do it again with that knowledge, I would work part time.

Perhaps they actually want to spend time with their baby and small kids, raise them themselves rather than shunting them off to every Tom dick and harry for the working week?
Jesus what’s happened to the world that mothers can’t actually be with their babies and toddlers anymore without being called a shirker.

Should every family be able to claim benefits to be able to afford for one parent to stay at home? We certainly couldn't have afforded to have a SAHP.

Hang on. Won’t op qualify for help towards childcare through universal credit? (Quite rightly).
Surely, she should at least applying for the additional nursery hours that will allow her to work and support herself?

Wow this thread really shows how much MN/society has changed since I had my dc1 in the early noughties.

I wanted to work, and full time too but was heavily pressured by everyone not to.

I did work ft and paid for ft childcare but I never met another young single mum who did.

I don't know whether it was better then or not.

At least then there seemed to be a choice.

Motherhood was an alternative to paid work for poor women. It isn't now.

She has applied for 15 in what sounds like a couple of weeks. That's a lot considering how few jobs in her category are likely to be out there, and how long the search and applications take.

Maybe people should stop tearing her down for her efforts and her having some anxiety about what is expected and fear of being sanctioned.

But this is a choice that you make if you have the financial means to make it? Not a choice you make and expect tax payers to fund it.
How many of us working parents would have like to have stayed at home when our children were small but accepted we couldn’t because we could afford to?
Its exactly this attitude that leaves me 🤦‍♀️

That’s find but why should taxpayers pay for someone to stay at home?
Fyi - professional childcare isn’t every Tom, Dick or Harry

The pearl clutchers are out in force today. "Won't somebody think of the poor tax payers"😱
Who do you think pays for the "free" nursery hours?
30 free hours costs roughly 170 a week to the government a single parent claiming uc will get 315 a month for one child

So how about you turn your ire on those awful working scroungers snatching up all those poor little tax £££s in order to pay someone else to look after their child /s

Well, OP cannot afford to stay at home without being funded by all this mum's who are, going off your post, 'shunting' their DC off in the name of paying tax and funding the work shy like OP.

nobody is saying mums cannot be with their DC but if they haven't got the money, they will just need to work.

it's also very offensive to state that working parents are 'shunting their DC off to every Tom, Dick and Harry' . What a cuntish post.

It’s not for other people (taxpayers) to fund that!

Because her tiny child needs to be with at least one of his/her parents sometimes?

Yes I think at least part time. Going back to work full time when the baby is 9 months to me is just incredibly sad and wrong and against nature. I know I’m in the minority and plenty of women will step up and say how ‘boring motherhood was and how they nearly lost their minds’ Yes I know many people ‘can’t afford it’ and that’s what I find sad and wrong also.