A couple of news stories:
We learned yesterday that most bus companies, including the big ones, have agreed to provide free bus travel for unemployed people who can produce a Jobcentre Plus travel card. But, as the Independent points out, it's for one month only - January. It's unlikely to help you get a job, but enjoy it.
Then there's the story in the Guardian about the mess which the Universal Jobmatch site has become. "The Universal Jobmatch site, which has so far cost taxpayers more than £17m, has advertised fake jobs including for an MI6 "target elimination specialist" and "international couriers" for CosaNostra Holdings, as well as listing pornographic websites. There are fears that jobseekers could become victims of identity theft. On Tuesday, the Department of Work and Pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith admitted 6,000 jobs had been blocked since the site launched on 19 November and scores of employer accounts had been blocked." And we learn that "Monster, the company that operates the site, had been previously caught out by Ukraine-based hackers in 2007 when the confidential details of more than 1.3 million people were stolen." You couldn't make it up. And it's apparently putting off genuine employers. But still people are being told, wrongly, that they have to register with the site.
Everyone knows CosaNostra Holdings only employs internal candidates with the right family connections. You'd have to be a right schmuck to think that was a real job offer!
ReplyDelete19-year old Edinburgh man talks about his experience of Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) at Salvation Army shop.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/i-was-told-unpaid-placement-was-for-work-experience-1480978
In the interests of balance I have included the Salvation Army's response to the allegation they use workfare. The only work experience scheme that lasts for 4 weeks is MWA.
http://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/uki/Work_Fare_Response
To be fair, it seems to hark back to the previous system of putting people into "work placements" for a number of weeks as part of New Deal or FND or whatever. SA shops, like other charity shops, have been taking these placements for years, and don't regard it as workfare.
Delete"SA shops, like other charity shops, have been taking these placements for years, and don't regard it as workfare"
ReplyDeleteStrange that! It's enforced (or to use your word, "compulsory") menial labour for no pay. Seems like the very definition of "workfare" to me - wonder why the SA and other charities don't see it that way.
Under privatised New Deal, people had 13 weeks to fill and the emphasis was on work experience. By and large no compulsion was involved, and clients often preferred to spend their time doing something to sitting in front of a computer doing very little. Some providers actually paid the charity a small amount to take people.
DeleteYou could well argue that things are different now, and I wouldn't disagree. But you could also argue that if you're forced into work activity it's better to be in the voluntary sector than working for a private company.
I am findng that the number of vacancies advertised on the new UJ website has fallen dramatically compared to the number that used to be advertised on the old Directgov Jobsearch site. The local university seem to have discovered how to work the new UJ website but I suspect that most other local employers cannot be bothered with it. If they want to place job-adverts on-line, the local newspapers facilitate this instead. Similarly, I can find out about the university's job vacancies via the university's own website and the Government has no legal power to compel me to do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteMy local JCP have not tried to force me to register for this thing. I tried to ask a young man from the JCP about it when I went to sign on last week. He had clearly never tried to use the UJ website himself. He was just trotting out the Government's (inaccurate) propaganda about the UJ website.
I am not prepared to allow a company called Monster to have any access to any information about me, period.
I agree with the recruitment agent quoted by the Guardian. I don't think that the majority of employers or the majority of jobseekers will bother with this UJ thing. It'll just be yet another white elephant of a wheeze that has cost a fortune but it will fall into disuse pretty rapidly, I suspect.
Since there were very few vacancies in my area that I could apply for I hope this is not the case. I am going to ask about this next time I sign anyway - since I only occasionally used the JCP website before, why do I have to use it now?
DeleteMy local university used to have ads on the old JCP website. They were obviously not placed by the university itself, but by someone who had no understanding of academic email addresses (ie instead of polly'slocaluni.ac.uk as you'd expect you got polly'slocaluni.co.uk). I don't expect the situation will have changed now.
Being a dedicated JobSeeker, I have noticed that the same jobs same words are readvertised yesterday I applied for one, and today the same job came up, but with a date of today. The same job, two different days. I have also seen Commission only jobs,
ReplyDeleteI used to use the old Directgove website to look for work. I will not be using the new Universal Job Match site. I can see that the same jobs are being re-posted as new vacancies and I resent the idea of somebody in the Jobcentre that I don't know and never met snooping in my computer account and reading the details of my job applications.
DeleteI think that looking for work will now be a lot harder for me, because the Directgov website used to bring together vacancies from different organizations. Now I am going to have to try randomly searching for vacancies over the internet.
I wonder if a charity could put up a system similar to the old Directgov site maybe with a vetting process for adverts reduce the number of con artists putting up fake jobs to steal peoples identities.
It's depressing to think how things have deteriorated over the last few years. The old Jobcentre website - before Directgov - wasn't too bad to start with, it just wanted a few tweaks to stop it throwing up "local jobs" that were 300 miles away. Then they started letting "employers" post their own ads and it declined, then they went onto Directgov and we thought it couldn't get any worse - we were so wrong there! Now we have Universal Jobmatch which is worse again, and no doubt given time they'll come up with something even worse.
ReplyDelete"no doubt given time they'll come up with something even worse."
DeleteA site funded under a "payment by results" run by A4e perhaps ?
Huh! Don't put ideas into their silly heads! I would never trust a website called Monster! Apt name, considering that is what this government have created. A Monster.
DeleteI also have noticed that jobs are being reposted with todays date i.e. if a job was first posted on the 7th it is reappearing on YESTERDAYS job search. Clearly, someone is trying to 'boost' the total number of jobs on the site. More worringly I have noticed that my saved job searches/alerts have changed. I had them set-up to search for yesterdays jobs, within 5 miles, daily but this has changed to all jobs, within 40 miles, weekly. This threw up 7,000 jobs!!!
ReplyDeleteI will bring this up when I next sign on.
I have registered with UJM because I was told I had to (yes, I know it's not mandatory).
ReplyDeleteI put in a couple of specialisms as an experiment and it comes up with a list of qualifications for one of them which aren't available in the UK. So what I have isn't listed, but a whole lot of foreign ones are. And, of course there are no jobs with that specialism listed on UJM (or the old JCP website) anyway, whereas there are on agency and websites catering for that field. I shall be telling my advisor at the JC this next time I sign. The other specialism has a few jobs in the UK but none closer than 50 miles away.
Apart from that there are, as before, no basic minimum wage jobs I can get to in my immediate area anyway, in fact as other people have noted there seem to be fewer - at least there used to be cleaning jobs which might have been a possibility if I wasn't dependent on public transport, there are none listed at present. On Reed however there are are 8 jobs I can apply for and reasonably expect to be able to do. They are also above minimum wage pay.
The Judge has asked them not to consider the second charge,and not place a verdict on this..why? because although I have no legal qualifications it would void/contrast the previous case regarding Kate Reilly.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed the repetition of jobs as well. There are a great many things about that site, aside from the security risks, that really stink.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately frontline staff are walking into a trap. When UC goes live I imainge registration on UJ will be a requisite. They want everything done online so in order to sign for your UC, online, you will have to show, via UJ, what you have done that period. This means a certain reduction in frontline advisers as the WP has already replaced their efforts in jobsearching etc. Any adviser defending this scheme really needs to ask themselves some serious questions.
"Any adviser defending this scheme really needs to ask themselves some serious questions"
DeleteGood point GW! Not that striking should take place at tjhe drop of a hat. BUT if anything was worth striking for, you'd think this was it! Any strike action by JCP staff these days seems to be an excercise in futility!
If things continue down this particular path, then physical Job Centres will vanish in 10 years time.
It is very much like employees, especially those on low pay championing workfare. Despite the fact that such policies attack the very jobs they feel so lucky to have in the first place!
Well done to the government though. They have really played a blinder when it comes to divide and rule!