To think people on benefits can’t win

[Flamingosareflummoxed]

I’ve heard so many people this week, in real life, moaning about people on benefits. I get it that we are all struggling. The cost of living is crippling.
But every week there are posts on here from women who were in 70K per year HR positions who are finding it difficult to get interviews for MW jobs.
There are no jobs.
The few jobs that there are will be flooded with applications, why would recruiters chose someone who has been unemployed for years?
Plus all those with long term disabilities who need reasonable adjustments.
Its like people want to bash people knowing there is no real alternative.

My work has been recruiting for a new grad position and we’ve only been getting foreign applicants, none of whom have passed the English exam this time so we are readvertising again. There is a university 20 miles away which runs the course for our profession and yet none of the students ever want to travel and recruitment is a constant struggle. Our council also has constant recruitment for carers (they never shut the advert) but people aren’t interested in these kinds of roles 🤷.

It always made me laugh the creche for staffs children at the hospital i used to be a nurse at was open monday to friday 7am untill 6pm at a hospital where a significant proportion of the parents were working weekends, nights ; unsocial hours.

He should register with a recruitment agency. Care homes and hospitals use them for catering, cleaning and care work. This would give him experience and show future employers that he is keen.

How many parents would put their children in a crèche late at night or overnight?

Up till 9pm would hsve been helpful , when most late shifts finished, and weekends.

The tax-payer can’t cover every cost of you going to work, you have to contribute some for others to look after your children.

Just as much as the tax-payer shouldn’t have to pay for EVERYTHING (rent, bills, clothes, food etc etc) for those who find every excuse in the book not to work.

Caring is a very, very physically demanding job. Most women I know couldn’t do it - old bodies are too fragile and too heavy. Young men only, this one.

Miles harder muscle work than being a carpenter or an electrician.

We had to get youngish male carers for both my parents because women can’t really lift the bodies (dead weight) even in pairs.

I’d rather be a builder any day.

Those that were desperate and no other way of holding down a job.

This is correct.

A lovely Swiss girl has just been let go at our work (we are all remote). The help she can now apply for is directly linked to her past roles - there are all sorts of forms to fill, and former employers have to write a letter. She is very skilled and just got really unlucky.

They don't just throw out benefits to people who haven't contributed to the system.

I recruit quite often. Jobs go out, interviews offered. Often people don't book an interview or they do and they don't turn up. Great if they have got another job, just wish they would let us know so we aren't sat there all morning 🙂

@Flamingosareflummoxed I think it's more complicated; in some cases you do have people being genuinly not fit for work (mh/disabled). But some are just plain lazy. And some are doing the maths and if they will be worse off working than on benefits ofcourse they won't work!

I am struggling to find a job having been out of the workforce for 16 years due to my autistic son needing someone at home at all times, irregular school attendance with some home schooling in the middle and dh going away frequently. Haven't needed benefits thanks to dh salary luckily but now when I want to work approaching 50 it's really hard to find.

I think that you always have to earn more working than on benefits to have an incentive to work. And if you work a minimum wage job and have to pay for wrap around care for kids, council tax, dentistry etc etc it doesn't add up if you're a single mum with kids. I've got a friend in this situation with 3 kids and she's def better off with benefits. She's not lazy; spends her day cooking from scratch, has an immaculate social housing flat and plenty of time for her children.

Min UC, basic PIP and carers allowance here. Mortgage free small property, had to sell car - can't afford to run one now. Not rolling in it at all, no dentist either can't afford it.
I'd like a break from caring to work part time but there nothing suitable even mim wage work gets snapped up quickly. Been trying for the last 3 years.
Where ARE all these numerous jobs that previous peeps bang on about?

Tbf nobody is supposed to lift patients they are supposed to hoists , pat slides etc.

What ages are her children?

I like your son's attitude.

Where I live (SE England) the post office is desperate for more posties and lots of care homes are also recruiting.

there just aren’t though. The market is shrinking

Nothing will change until the option of being better off on benefits is removed. It's not even just about the amount they get paid, it's all the other benefits added together which make them far more comfortable than a lot of working people. I can totally understand why they don't bother getting a job but I do not understand why it's possible to be in that position.

Ofcourse she can cook from scratch, have an immaculate house and plenty of time with her children because her neighbours are all going to work, having money taken from their wages by the tax man who then hand it to her.

If we all did what she did - nothing but clean our home - there would be no hand-out for her.

In the meantime her neighbours have to work, then come home to cook, clean and play with their children whilst she’s all done with feet-up watching Netflix.

Everyone who can work should be working.

DD is similar. Shes at uni. Shes applied for well over 100 jobs. Shes got one now, its zero hours....which sometimes means 4 hours a fortnight...which barely makes any difference.
Ive no idea how this would work if you were on benefits and had such erratic hours.

Also (and I didnt know this til she told me) if you Google jobs in x area there are a lot of fake vacancies or ones that have already been filled.

There is a charitable childcar model in Scotland exactly for this purpose. It saves money long run to prevent people falling into poverty. We have got sooo bad at prevention in the UK.

But people in work get 1 year maternity leave vs those not working get 3 years off paid for by taxpayers.

Not quite the point of my post there 🙄

Got any solutions to the issues of childcare deserts and the unreasonable expectations primary schools put on working parents?

There's being fussy, but there's also being realistic. If you're the hypothetical HR professional being made redundant from your corporate/public sector office job, it's not easy to "just" get a job in retail or hospitality, with no relevant (or at least recent) experience. (I mean "just" in the sense of people saying "Stop thinking you're above certain jobs, just work in your local supermarket," not that those jobs are in any way easy!)

I am also in this unfortunate club. Although I do fortunately have a partner but things are very tight. My child with additional needs asked me the other day why I stopped going to work as i always looked super happy going (it wasnt perfect at all care work,they didnt pay me they canceleld shifts etc ) I was happy to be working though. My child has no idea that I had to stop because they have ebsa when school aren't meeting their needs. All the meetings with senco all the times I'm needed for meltdown or early pick up. Because they can't attend any childcare setting. Minimum wage jobs have 0 flexibility and I just couldn't make it work.

Forgetting all the morals, the why's and the wherefores it’s using the public purse. Unless someone believes in redistribution of funds as a concept then they will especially if they are starting to feel the pinch be against it.

Social welfare in its infancy was about stopping people from starving and dying on a very base level. Now the welfare state attempts to level social inequality hence the much wider range of policies. It’s a poor attempt at social engineering.

I would say the list of people you describe @Flamingosareflummoxed are a real mix of misfortune but what you need to remember is not everyone cares. In fact people that manage to make it out of circumstances that are really dire are sometimes the harshest judges. My Mothers young history puts her on your list, she spent a year in hospital as a child and it’s a miracle she survived, Father killed himself when she was a teenager, SA by her stepfather, her first husband was violent and she divorced when it was utterly shameful in the 1950’s. She would call your list The Great Unwashed, would have had some sympathy for the people with learning disabilities but that would be it and would expect them to do really low grade unskilled work if capable.

The issue with the welfare state is most people cannot just look at it objectively, they let their hearts get involved and their own political leanings influence heavily, hence why it’s a mess.