Two stories

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.