There are some startling figures about MWA. "... almost two thirds of claimants placed on mandatory work activity (MWA) do not start it because they find a job, stop claiming benefits or simply do not turn up. Of the 90,000 people referred to the scheme, only 33,000 started. More than 6,200 have lost their benefits for not taking part."
The website Totaljobs has a different slant on this, according to the Express. The number of applicants for every job vacancy is growing. "The reality is that a great deal of the jobs created have been part-time and low paid, and many of those that have been taken off the unemployment roll have in fact just gone into government training schemes rather than paid work."
So what is going on? Is the black economy growing? Or are there more people simply disappearing from the figures because they are being shuffled onto different programmes or "sanctioned"?
"There are some startling figures about MWA. "... almost two thirds of claimants placed on mandatory work activity (MWA) do not start it because they find a job, "
ReplyDelete- which is why the government will regard this as a success. If it pushes people to find work (regardless of the truth of this claim), then it's served its purpose. Not good
Theres meant to be a minimum wage in the uk. but what the goverment call "placements" or "training" means the minimum wage does not apply, A person must complete a four week placement/training (work) if a civil servant thinks such 4 weeks work is needed by a person. this is work paid at the rate per hour of jobseekers allowance for 30 hours a weeks work, far below the minimum wage. the minimum wage in the uk is not even a living wage, so people working for 4 weeks for 30 hours a week (at a civil servants say so) are being exploited, a refusal to take part in this exploitation would more than likley result in a sanction of 13 weeks for a "First offence", leaving the person without food or the ability to pay bills. ive nothing against work but that work should be paid at a living wage. as said the minimum wage in the uk is not a living wage. many people in work in the uk are getting food from food banks and many are in poverty.
ReplyDeleteI was told I cannot do voluntary work for more than 16 hours a week as it won't leave me enough time to look for work, so how can they then say we have to work a 30 hour week on placements etc.
DeleteYou can volunteer any hours you want.
DeleteThe recession meant there were less paid working hours available for the population, what this means is that many workers opt to reduce their hours rather than lose their jobs, vacancies are generally more part time and zero hour contracts are becoming more and more common, all of which are classed as work even if it isn't economically productive. So it results in more employment statistically speaking but less productivity. This isn't a good thing, as much as the Government wants us to think so. The number of working hours haven't increased, but the number of people working for less has.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC and C4 around August/September time if memory serves, reported on this paradox in the unemployment figures versus GDP and this was the conclusion they came to.
The story I am about to relate is true.
DeleteLast week I was travelling on a crowed bus through a major city.
A group of young men, maybe seven in number, got on and sat near me. Their conversation ranged from gossip about people they knew, football and other such matters.
I did not notice how the topic came up, but one of them began relating in a voice loud enough to be over-heard clearly, how Employment and Support Allowance had not been paid into his account as he had expected, earlier that month. On investigation he was told by the DWP that his payments had been stopped because he had not attended a medical interview.
He told his friends that he had not received the letter asking him to attend the medical examination and how he had had to go to his GP to get a sick note. That was several weeks before and he still had not received any money.
He then went on to say that he had survived because he had been living from the proceeds of the sale of a wide screen television he had stolen from a major electrical store. He claimed he walked in and simply ran out with it.
I listened fascinated as he described how he avoided being tracked by the CCTV cameras etc. At the end of the account he said he hated doing it but, at the end of the day he had no money to buy food.
It is an urban myth that civilization is only ever nine meals away from collapse. People who have not eaten for three days, will do what they need to acquire food.
I imagine that this is what the government means when they refer to people moving into the "informal economy."
I'm not sure what the moral of your story is. And there is a possibility that the young man was telling lies to impress his mates.
DeleteThere is no moral to the story, Historian. I simply related what I heard on the bus trip.
DeleteI concluded by observing that if citizens are deprived of the means to legitimately obtain the basic necessities of life, many will try to obtain them illegitimately.
Indeed,I read that the governments own advisers are objecting to the new rules that allow benefits to be discontinued for three years, as they fear that those effected will have little choice other than to turn to crime and prostitution.
The number of people being sanctioned has also increased dramatically with the effect that they are not classed as claiming. In reality they are still unemployed but for the slightest reason their money is stopped and then they are really on the skids as I have witnessed!
ReplyDeleteNot to be the obtuse,but I am a firm believer that the numbers are fiddled,what is employed and what counts as unemployed depends upon a persons status(box ticking) many people that I know are still claiming,but are not considered unemployed based upon the programme they have to attend.I remember an old farmer pointing out a pile of chicken shit,on the top was a pure white drop,he asked what I thought of that?...I was not sure,he replied,well at the end of the day it is still chicken shit.
ReplyDeleteI live in the United States. Nonetheless, your post was interesting and some of what you said (especially regarding the private market) might be pertinent to the U.S. economy as well.
ReplyDeleteI signed-off during Mr Bliar's term of office with his unworkable and totally nonsensical so-called 'New Deal' programme though I haven't obtained a job since. One day, the British government will gain a brain and start using it and realise that if they treated unemployed people with a bit of dignity and commonsense instead of castigating all of them as 'workshy' blah, blah, blah then the unemployed might get jobs but then that would require REAL economic growth something all Labour and Tory governments are totally incapable of achieving.
ReplyDelete