Where do I start?

The race to the bottom continues. A quick glance of any high street and job centre vacancy list will soon still tell you that. What was once “desirable” many years ago has now become “essential”. Some of our cities are de-gentrifying: Shops move out and pound/pawn shops move in. But the Ramsdens, Wonga.coms and Poundworlds shops of this world are chasing after an ever decreasing pool of money. Mind you, they can always use some free labour from the governments ‘work programme’. And it appears nearly 60% of people who go to an ATOS assessment are miraculously cured (1) and the other 40% eventually get back what they lost after months of appealing. Still those 40% can answer the old job question:

“Show an example of where you had to overcome a hostile difficult situation”.

The vacancies on the job centre website are increasingly tied in with the downward spiral of desperation: debt collectors, outbound sales, work programme coaches or the classic ‘The company has given an assurance that this vacancy enables workers to achieve a wage equivalent to the National Minimum Wage rate.’ Really? And of course all those lovely £2.60 per hour jobs? (2) AKA apprenticeships which this government is keen to increase, again wouldn’t these have been “trainee” rather than apprenticeships a few years ago? They say many jobs are through friends of friends. But my acquaintances bless them have suggestions which without fail, tend to be out of date, irrelevant or simply useless. Then there are those like me have banded together in a sort of protest / self help group. And the rest are stuck in jobs with no prospect of moving on and do not want extra competition at their workplace. Some are in ‘target’ driven jobs, but have you ever found anyone who likes  been forced to sell tat over the phone to someone who doesn’t want it for a price it’s not worth?

“What’s that Mr Brown, struggling with fuel poverty?; why yes you would love our overpriced boiler insurance scheme that preys on your fears”.

The other day I was speaking to a drunk worker from G4S (oh yes) who couldn’t understand why I was unemployed. I said if anyone offered me a job I would start next week. This just didn’t fit with her cosy world view, and she was horrified by the news of ATOS assessments /workfare.

The other? problem? with being unemployed is you have time to realise how odd our system is: incentivising companies to destroy the planet, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the failure to do something about the ‘ageing population’ or the inability to put people before profit. At the end of the day the only thing left you can rely on is yourself and your principles. I have even heard someone suggest that the unemployed are doing the rest a favour by keeping them employed?

There but for the grace of <insert deity here> go I.

So if you can hack living off £6700 for over 25s (Housing benefit+ jobseekers) or £5700 for under 25s then you too can live the dream! You too can be forced to volunteer on the government’s work program even though the job centre still routinely tells jobseekers to not volunteer more than 1-2 days per week, just in case they miss that non-existent job. Also being on a training course of almost any form would prevent me from receiving benefits.

Jobcentreplus: proud to encourage lying since the New Deal was introduced.

If you work more than 16hr per week you will lose benefits. The worst amount of hours is 16-25hrs since you could be worse off! Especially as minimum wage for 18-20 is £4.98 and 21+ is £6.08 (3). You may get tax credits but with the constant welfare reforms not even the job centre can predict if you will be better off! And the ‘Universal Credit’ system is in trial stages; allegedly Leeds gets to be a Guinea Pig from October. At the moment if you work consistently less than 16hr per week then you get a reduced level of jobseekers’ allowance. However if you have a flexible <16hr job then the job centre can’t cope. But fear not, whilst the Inland Revenue can allow corporate tax evasion the good old job centre will still find you after several years to get back jobseeker overpayments. Only 0.8-1.2% of benefit payments are lost due to fraud (4).

 You might even get sent to a one size fits all 2 weeks course with A4e, Interserve and the other vultures. (If you do then see http://www.consent.me.uk/ on how to withdraw your 3^rd party consent, if enough people do and ignore the £50-100 bribe you get for finding a job then these companies will soon go bust. They get £500-1000 for you being in a job for 6 months). A4e recently boasted of 3.5% success rate but there is little evidence that these people found jobs due to A4e. Why can’t they send some of this money to the job centre? No one at the job centre has ever even asked for my CV. They are been actively demotivated and undermined by the DWP. Several advisors have privately said they hate the work programme companies as they undermine their jobs. Good old joined up government policy, almost good as the “competition and cooperation panel” in the new NHS reforms.

And Graduate Schemes are the Devil’s spawn. I am genuinely of the view that corporations view them as cheap PR or 1 day jollies at graduate fairs. Ever been one of a hundred at the first stage of an interview scheme for ultimately two positions? Ever been strung along on a 6 month application process? But shock horror no one thought where all these extra graduates should go, let alone which sectors would collapse within a few years. And you also get the double whammy of been ‘over qualified’ for certain jobs! Should we congratulate the league tables on improving the education of the unemployed? All the universities and graduate agencies are playing the same game trying to gloss over unemployed graduates. After all aren’t students (and jobseekers) simply another ‘market’ to take advantage of?

TEFL? (Teach English as Foreign Language). Well I don’t think fleeing poverty is particularly the best reason to teach and SHOULD not be the reason you consider isolating yourself for 1 year abroad. And of course when you come back you could be in a worse position than when you started. And in the meantime someone might have finally said

“You know what, isn’t a double dip the same thing as a depression”?

Family business? Simply not an option I’ve even tried the colleague of the brother-in-law of my sister’s fiancée, can you get any more tenuous?

Business? “So why don’t you set up your own business?”… to which I reply there are thousands of people who have already tried that, you don’t make money reinventing the wheel unless it’s a million pound wheel. Then all you do is make another company bankrupt and unemployed. If I wake up one morning with a genuine original idea I will let you know. Certain job centres were even encouraging the unemployed to go self employed to massage the figures.

Council jobs? With 85% of the cuts still to come I consider it fairly useless in applying for council jobs, surely they will go to recently sacked staff?

Bar work? But I need full time hours and often they require experience, I tend to get put off adverts which ask for a ‘zany’ personality. A pub would be ok but they are closing down.

Night shifts? I don’t mind the odd one and accept I should get paid less than someone who only does night shifts.

Agencies? Be it accommodation or job they are useless. I could apply to work an agency but I would only be making the system worse! I’m also bemused by companies who offer 6 month jobs through agencies rather than themselves. Agencies should be only for last minute labour and senior headhunting.

Allotment? A full allotment would cost £30 a year and there are now waiting lists. After all the government aren’t interested in your health or doing something useful.

Freeganism? Despite that employees hate throwing away food, several supermarkets still do. They also now lock away their bins and often pour bleach on the food. The question is why do supermarkets love landfill, did I miss a meeting?

Squatting? That’s now even more illegal whereas buildings which stand empty for years are legal. After all with the relaxed planning laws we wouldn’t want to retrofit or refit our old buildings when we could build on greenbelt.

And you know I have had several jobs and know I can get a permanent job. Who knows if it say it enough times I might even believe it.

Hmmm so how do you set up a co-operative?

(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK6ZjDslGa8

(2) http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/TheNationalMinimumWage/DG_10027201

(3) Over 25 HB + JSA = £6700  Equivalent to 21.5hr * £6.08 *52.14 =£6815 but you also get council tax discount worth several hundred pounds so probably nearer 22hr.

Under 25 over 21 HB + JSA = £5700 equivalent to 18hr * 6.08 *52.14 =£5706

Under 25 aged 18-20 HB + JSA = £5700 equivalent to 22hr *£4.98 *52.14 =£5712

Bearing in mind the average wage is supposedly £26000 but this is not an average across those who have and do not have jobs.

(4) http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/index.php?page=fraud_error_arc