Workfare versus Work Experience

[rabbitstew]

How important is prior work experience, normally, to a job as a shelf stacker? I would have thought that anyone taking that on via Workfare who then failed to get or take the job at the end of it would be ringing the death knell to any future employment as they would be assumed to have been too slack to even get that sort of work when offered to them on a plate. And I know that unpaid work experience is more or less compulsory to anyone hoping to get into publishing, for example, but I'm sure that nobody would get to keep their benefits if they got themselves a bit of that sort of work experience.

So, basically, I'm a bit unclear as to whom Workfare is supposed to really benefit, apart from those people who wanted jobs in Tesco in the first place, but who now find they can't access them unless they are on a Workfare scheme?????

exactly rabbit. They keep going on about how they stacked shelves etc but they always omit to mention that they were fucking PAID.
Would THEY have done it for their JSA? Of course they wouldnt.

I think Chris would benefit from a bit of work experience himself, even Tesco might not take him on with his current level of literacy.

sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/chris-grayling-remedial-student/

Bit of light relief for all us Job snobs

Laughable for anyone from this cabinet of millionaire former elite public schoolboys to accuse anyone else of being a snob, ffs.

The letter is highly amusing - thanks, minimathsmouse! If only the scheme were as well run and co-ordinated as Chris Grayling likes to think! I think actually getting PROPERLY organised work experience in a sector of genuine interest to a job seeker who is trying unsuccessfully to get into that very industry but coming up against their lack of experience at interviews would be good.

I was amused by the statistics on the number of job seekers coming off benefits very quickly afterwards. I wonder if that figure includes people who come off benefits as a sanction for not completing their placement!

Can the Government not admit that its schemes are currently poorly co-ordinated, it has no idea what is really going on because it has contracted everything out to companies not averse to fraud and overworked Job Centre Plus advisers who are keen to keep their own jobs by meeting targets (rather than peoples' needs), young people are NOT all being carefully selected for the "voluntary" programmes, or even consciously selecting themselves, others are being put on mandatory schemes without sufficient justification, and the whole thing is currently a travesty???? So much for the private sector improving efficiency and reliability and being cheaper for the State to use than the public sector. The next thing we know, these private providers will be telling the Government they need more money to run everything properly and will pay their chief executives huge bonuses out of the extra cash.

www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/wp-pg-chapter-3.pdf

This is worth a read especially page 4 point 15.

Where it proves that this is forced labour and that they know they have to side step the law on the national minimum wage. This isn't work experience, this is forced labour, it breaks the law in two ways
Forced labour and slave labour. Although there seems to be contention over the "slave labour term" the law states that an employer can not "withhold wages"

Clear from DWP guidance that they are totally in favour of withholding wages.

Haven't read all of the thread but as an employer I would rather employ someone who was already in employment or at least was showing commitment by turning up to a work experience placement even if it was only stacking shelves than someone who was doing nothing.

Demonstrating the get up and go to actually get to work is half the battle particularly with younger employees in my limited personal experience.

I preferred the scheme of the 90s where you got an extra £10 on top of your benefits to train and actually got a useable skill as well but that's very expensive to administer.

But I think the bigger problem is that we've lost a pride in work which means that people are embarrassed to say 'I stack shelves/clean toilets'. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these jobs. Frankly I'd do them if I needed a job tomorrow because if it's stable work it's worth having. But it should be paid, even if a nominal amount and whenever I've had work experience staff I'd paid them a small stipend (only £50 a week) to recognise that they are putting in effort.

These people should be paid minimum wage. A faircday's pay for a fait dsy's work.

Stacking shelves on night shift is very different to photocopying for a week in a law office.

I absolutely agree - there is nothing wrong with stacking shelves. It's an exceptionally useful thing to do, since no-one wants to go into supermarket with empty shelves. It's such a useful thing to do, I think anyone doing it deserves to get paid to do so.

Why on earth should someone be embarrassed to say they earn their living stacking shelves or cleaning toilets? What's embarrassing is to say you can't or don't earn your living that way, the person getting you to do it is paid to have you there, instead. Or to have someone assume that you are one of those people who is doing it because they have to, when you actually made the choice to do it and work very hard for your living.

And still need the Government to support you, because it's rather difficult to support a family doing it on the salary you earn.

I do know people who use night time shelf stacking to supplement their daytime income. If those sorts of jobs really are taken up by jobseekers, there will be people who go from being able to support themselves to being reliant on Government help. It's a shame there is no accurate way of measuring whether work schemes do have a significant impact on paid employment.

People feeling embarrassed to stack shelves or do any other form of manual work has been brought about by this idea that all young people should go to university.

The very people that now want to get paid labour for nowt are the very same people who have consistently undermined the position in society of manual workers. They have eroded their pay and conditions, demoralised their pride, asked any half educated person to distance themselves from working class culture, through the virtual destructions of the unions to Tony's comment about class we have seen a dumbing and numbing effect whereby you either accept the poison chalice of believing yourself middle class or you drop through the cracks and become a creature worthy of only pitty and scorn.

Everyone who works for someone else, everyone on PAYE engaged in any form of economic activity that creates profit for their employer is working class irrespective of how much they are paid or how well educated they are.

The proof of this is now being borne out by the fact that Workfare is forcing graduates to clean houses and stack shelves.

What about the lady who was forced to stop doing voluntary work for a museum to work in Tesco even though the museum work was more likely to be useful on her CV in her chosen career path.

A few years ago a friend of mine who was qualified in childcare and between jobs asked if she might do voluntary work as a teaching assistant as this might lead to a permanent job in the school if one became vacant or at least fill a gap on her cv. Very important in childcare! She was told no because if the school offered her voluntary work it would mean they should be paying her. Does not the same apply to Tesco.

If they need retail experience a charity shop would be a better option and how can they look for work if they are stacking shelves in Tesco.

Most unemployed are not workshy and lazy but desperately trying to find work. who in thier right mind wants to have complete stangers prying into every aspect of thier life and making them feel like they are nothing every two weeks so they can live in poverty on JSA.

Many jobseekers are mature and out of work for no fault of thier own and hunting for work that just isn't there and with the raising of the pension age that will get worse.

We need proper appretiships for the young to teach them real skills and a more relaxed approach to the type of voluntary work people can take up.

"there is nothing wrong with stacking shelves. It's an exceptionally useful thing to do, since no-one wants to go into supermarket with empty shelves. It's such a useful thing to do, I think anyone doing it deserves to get paid to do so."

I completely agree. An exceptionally useful job that should be paid.

rabbitstew "It's a shame there is no accurate way of measuring whether work schemes do have a significant impact on paid employment."

There are ways that you can measure whether work schemes impact on paid employment - they're not perfect, but they are possible. There are also ways of measuring whether work schemes are effective at increasing participants likelihood of getting a job.

Governments commission these sort of studies all the time. They then look at whether the study gives the 'right' answer, and depending that, either flourish it around for all to see, or alternatively use it as a doorstop.

There's a summary here of an evaluation of 'Action for Community Employment', a work scheme that ran in Northern Ireland under the last Cons. govt.

Admittedly the scheme was somewhat different in that the work was all for community organisations, it was paid (IIRC it was tenner a week over benefits), it was for longer, and there was a training element though the funding for that was derisory. But basically every decent evaluation study I have ever read (which is not to say all of them, but certainly a fair few) of a workfare style scheme has failed to find evidence of additionality in job outcomes.

With ACE, I think it was 42% of participants got jobs, and all the number crunching suggested that if they hadn't been in the scheme in fact more would have been in work by the end of the period measured.

Interestingly, the government has said it won't release any data about how many jobs have resulted from workfare until this September at the earliest. At least Tesco gave some figures:- approx 300 jobs from approx 1400 placements - but the number of placements has been disputed, and Tesco didn't say whether they were full-time jobs.

Freedom of Information requests for an estimate were refused by the DWP.

I suspect this is because they haven't followed up as they are obliged to do. Providers are simply filling out forms and sending them back to get the reward bonus (I suspect.)

Until a couple of months ago, the DWP had not done ANY checks on providers. The A4E check was only done after the national press found out nothing had been verified. The DWP's initial response was that it's got better things to do than check up on providers. That would be, better things to do than see if the multi-million pound contracts issued with taxpayers' money were being carried out.

I despair.
Sorry for lack of links - I had bookmarked them all, but deleted the folder in an over-enthusiastic cleanup It all comes from government docs, though, not blogs 'n' stuff.

Surely there's a case for topping up the benefits to the equivalent of the NMW if we want this scheme to work properly? Then I am sure people would be leaping at the chance to do placements.

Sir Stuart Rose saying that people should do it because unemployment is high.
Funny how it never enters the heads of the rich bods that workfare may be contributing to unemployment.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106897/Sir-Stuart-Rose-tells-firms-defy-Right-To-Work-militants.html

Funny how it never enters the heads of the rich bods that workfare may be contributing to unemployment.

Some of them are simply being outright disingenuous; they couldn't care less if it contributed to increasing unemployment because it helps the companies they own (or their financial interests) with free labour.

I agree boffinmum i readily admit im not very politically minded being brought up in the mindset 'they' do whats best for us /you cant change it anyway......but surely a single mum on benefits with dc at school if offered workfare which increases her weekly income to that of a standard where she is better off financially would surely be an incentive,to actively pursue employment after her placement ended.

Unemployed people desrve a respect that offers them money for working.

The Government can't afford to top up workfare applicants' benefits to NMW, because it's spending all its money on paying the employers who use the workfare applicants and paying the companies who get the workfare applicants to go into the companies that are using their labour. It is not checking up on how the schemes are working. That's because if it had to spend money checking up, it might as well not use private enterprises. The idea of using private enterprise is that Government is no longer accountable. Being accountable is too expensive for the State. The Government is too stupid to realise it is still accountable for the behaviour of private enterprises that use taxpayers' money and looks very silly when someone else uncovers greed, corruption and incompetence in organisations it is paying with taxpayers' money, especially when it realises that it cannot get out of its agreements without it being hugely expensive and there aren't any alternative providers who are up and ready to step into their shoes, anyway. Swapping around and changing contracts is time consuming and expensive, especially when you're a great big sitting duck of a country.

"Interestingly, the government has said it won't release any data about how many jobs have resulted from workfare until this September at the earliest. "

The thing is, raw data about how many participants moved into jobs tells you very little - what you need to know is what proportion of participants would have got jobs without the scheme, and how fast. As I say, all the evaluations I have read of workfare style schemes suggest that either the proportion will be lower, or there will be no significant difference.

That's not to suggest that there isn't a case for well thought out well funded real world work activities as part of a back to work programme for people who have either been out of a job for a very long time or who have never had a job, but to be honest they work very much better in a rising market.

The danger in an employment market with lots of surplus labour sloshing around is that participation in a workfare programme, especially a mandatory one will not only be potentially harmful in terms of taking people away from job seeking, but will actively mark them out as 'poor worker - no job skills - needed to be forced to do anything - AVOID'.

Certainly I've seen that effect in the past with other schemes for the unemployed which have had surrounding negative publicity about the participants (a bit like coming out of a programme that is specific to a well known sink estate from your area - whereas canny applicants will put down any address they can find to use from off the estate).

Really I guess if you want to run a successful employment programme for hard to place unemployed people you want (a) to run it in a tight labour market , and (b) to have lots of surrounding publicity about how good the programme is, how hard it is for people to access it, that there are X applicants for every Y places and the scheme has had to be super selective etc.

I think if working for welfare/unemployment benefit becomes the norm then a lot of paid jobs will disappear or shrink considerably.

Multiply the number of unemployed by the number of hours they are typically expected to do in these workfare type schemes (25 to 30 hours per week) that will come to a lot of hours of free labour for big profit making companies.

Sorry, the idea of using private enterprise is that it is more competitive... Only problem being, it doesn't need to be competitive once it is providing an essential service which cannot be interrupted and/or is too big to fail; and in other instances, it doesn't always need to be efficient or honest in order to beat off the competition, it just needs a good profit-making model to encourage shareholders intent only on their immediate personal returns and to hoodwink the fools paying it by sounding impressive and promising the earth for peanuts (and then delivering peanuts in return for the earth). If Government wants to prove private enterprises getting involved in public projects are a good thing, it needs to show it is not utterly incompetent at finding ethical, efficient providers of services from the private sector - and until it can prove that, it ought to leave the NHS as it is.

(Obviously, the NHS is nothing to do with Workfare (so far as I'm aware!), it's just my other major bugbear with the current Government...).