Virgin Media are the latest company to sacrifice their public image to benefit from unpaid workers on Government schemes. According to the company, employing young people on Traineeships and paying them nothing can bring “corporate and commercial opportunities”.
The shocking admission comes in a leaflet advertising the Traineeship programme (pdf), which can involve up to six months work without pay. They have been designed to ‘prepare’ young people for an ‘apprenticeship’ at below the minimum wage and participants are often not even offered one of these at the end of the scheme. Instead they are given an ‘exit interview’ to pat them on the heads for all their unpaid work.
As pointed out by @boycottworkfare, unpaid work on Traineeships is not yet mandatory, although no doubt many Jobcentre advisors will try and pretend they are. They may soon be right. George Osborne announced in his Autumn Statement that in future people under the age of 21 who refuse some form of workfare in the corporate sector will be sent on an even longer workfare scheme with a charity instead. With the latest workfare scheme appearing to be in chaos, it remains to be seen if this particular threat will ever be fully carried out.
In the meantime Virgin Media seem quite happy with the new arrangements and say they will be recruiting unpaid workers on an ongoing basis. This is hardly surprising, according to the leaflet Traineeships were ‘developed in response to business needs’ and can help ‘build the workforce required for business success’. Virgin Media Loves not paying wages and that’s the name of their new twitter campaign. Let them know what you think @VMLoves
Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
I always took the view that any company which had a relationship with Richard Branson should be avoided at all costs…..I am sure that he remains a nice boy, but always a close relation to Harry Enfield’s character “Tim Nice But Dim”.
His family wants him to go in to outer space as quickly as possible just so they can get on with their normal lives.
What a prick.
oh hes not a nice boy many years ago i had a girlfriend who was a nurse in st marys london,one of her friends used to go a well known market where a drug dealer had a “barrow” store selling disca and tapes this “entrepeneur” would put said stuff inside tape boxes and sleeves of lp,s and make a killing eventually a young man approached him with a tape hed made called “tubuler bells” the rest is history this is no “nice man”
now they see this as publicly acceptable is a very very sad indictment of how far our culture has moved away from humanity…that wages are so poor in any case and as the poor have virtually no disposable income, it is now seen as not even worth paying that low wage….if only that was the case when virgin depended on record sales, they would simply not have the power that they have today…their whole product range being sold on their supposed contract with humanity….
anyone is capable of fixing figures I work o contract hours with no holiday, sick or millage or guarantee of work after pay I am worse off than people unemployed I recently had a broken tooth no doubt due to poor diet but I couldn’t afford to pay for treatment.
. I applied to my local authority for help with my council tax and was told I should spend less on beer and cigarettes if only I could afford either!! I work in care work I feel used abused and un cared for how does that help anyone. I have recently sold my home of 20 years to live somewhere that I can afford I have done everything I my power to adjust but why after working and paying all of these years should I pay for high salaried people who fuck up ?
Gradually unpaid work is seen as a normal part of our economy and labour market. Companies now think nothing of taking on hundreds or even thousands of people and not paying them a penny in return.
Both Tory and Labour governments have been complicit in ensuring companies and charities alike are able to tap into an almost limitless supply of free labour. It is not the unemployed who create unemployment, but these corporate and charity exploiters sucking at the tit of corporate welfare provided by politicians of both main parties.
When I am unemployed, I do some voluntary work for our community transport as a driver and enjoy doing it. The only pay I get is thankyous aplenty. But this government has disgracefully demeaned and abused the army of volunteers in the UK who give up their free time gladly to help their communities. Incidentally my jobcentre told me that THEY decide the kind of ‘voluntary’ work I do,not me – presumably companies and organisations that support the Tory party rather, say, than village co-operative organisations. This policy is rotten to the core.
Let the Boycotts begin!
https://www.facebook.com/virginmedia
https://www.facebook.com/pages/WE-HATE-VIRGIN-MEDIA/106735152682435
I think you should be boycotting the politicians that are sanctioning workfare providers actions.
The politicians seem to only listen to big companies, and we’ve got to start somewhere, what else do you suggest.
No files on Dicky Branson. When it comes to free labour with no workers rights he know when he’s onto a good thing.
Him and every other company that uses workfare, but we have to shop somewhere and all the big companies use workfare it seems.
The work programmes cannot run without government money, so ultimately government are the first point of call.
g fawkes
who runs the pretender govt, but big business, and the banks…
True obd there is always power behind the puppet thrones, but we elect politicians not puppets who should be concerned with the interests of all not just business.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
Snout in the trough creeps. I tweeted them about it. Might go on and ask how it’s acceptable them paying Usain Bolt a fortune in advertising all the while they’re exploiting the poorest people in society.
Friggin’ corporate scumbags.
it’s all madness i can see it only getting worse sadly 😦 hate going into the local joke center plus office , every appointment i have i get proper stoned out of my face till my eyes are nearly closing, and i stink to high heaven of spliff! with a cheeky grin on my face, knowing they cant do shit!! pisses them right off, and they seem to be leaving me alone now, they want me out of there gestapo headquarters very swiftly indeed 🙂
How many cars will they buy?
Anybody heard anything about Osborne’s Help-to-Work scheme? If they can’t find tens of thousands of workfare places how will the be able to run it at all? I mean everybody coming off the Work Programme without a job can’t sign at the Jobcentre five times a week can they? How could the staff cope?
The brain-dead scabs in government should be given a choice between taking the electric chair or the gas chambers.
Latest bollcocks from my worse than useless scab WPP – they are trying to fuck me around with a new so-called job referral, this time expecting me to go freely to an zero-hour contract induction next week and no guarantees of minimum working hours or wages per week. Not bloody likely as I shan’t be attending this total fuck. I will stand by the amended DWP ruling on zero-hour contracts if those turds at WPP ask me whether or not I will be wasting my time for their enjoyment.
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
I am not surprised that Branson’s Virgin brand is also cashing in on the explosion of unpaid labour. Despite Branson’s hip image, his company never paid anything more than average wages and their was criticism of the way his companies operated when he was recruited as the supporters of either the Major or Blair administrations. I also remember reading a book by the artist, who designed the collage, mixed typeface covers of the albums of the Sex Pistols and the other Punk bands. He was very unimpressed with Brandon, particularly by his informal use of his first name when they met, despite not knowing him. The punk illustrator said that he thought ‘I’m ‘Mr’ (whatever the chap’s name was: I’ve forgotten) to you’. This shows that the Pistols were right: never trust a hippy.
His name’s Jamie Reid.
what exactly is a hippy?
A hipster! I think that’s where it came from.
Maybe from the wearing of very low hipped “loons” (those 60s trousers that had MAHOOSIVE flares, often made of velvet and sometimes the flares were embroidered mmmm)
Branson is a total buckshee. He will exploit those interns until they drop. Don’t forget he hones his craft during the Thatcher years.
Also, any man who sets off explosives in a stream fed trout pond to kill thousands of trout (as entertainment) so he can feed his party guests, needs to be kept away from all living things forever in my book.
Branson is a bearded wanker who screws the UK taxpayer -think Northern Rock (Now Virgin Money) who the UK government kindly ‘gifted’ to him at £Billions cost to us hard-working taxpayers. Virgin is not even a proper company anyway – it is a brand. All Dickie does is stick ‘no longer a Virgin’ on his latest conquest, or whatever whore he decides to ‘piggy-back’ on.
Long haired, Drugged up to the hilt, grown a beard.Keep falling asleep
on a regular basis, have casual sex without protection, don,t give a fuck about paying taxes, tone deaf, do not like their children, hate their parents,
Think that they are very important.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Workfare is not the fault of business, any business, but of the entire political class who believe in Austerity and Welfare Reform in a recession, that is counter intuitive to pull money out of the economy in an economic crisis.
The loss of young people’s jobs on the high street is due to the raised retirement age that has taken money out of the pockets of pensioners, who are also suffering benefit losses when half of women aged 60-66 are within the working poor and majority reason women 60-66 not in work is due to disability / chronic illness and those benefits being lost or never gained.
See if you lose most or all of your state pension:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
The only way to get rid of Workfare is to join and raise the profile of the new Left Unity Party – http://leftunity.org/about/
Labour will just continue Workfare, wasting taxpayers money on private profit making companies and paying the minimum wage means no gains for jobs in local community shops and businesses, to help out of recession.
Economic growth is only happening in London. We saw with Panorama programme that the poor are being moved out of London, as the squeezed middle on average wages seek the high rents in London, being pushed out of city centre by international investment buyers.
Guys this is off topic but i read Polly Toynbee on twitter saying this is explosive reading. Anyway i haven’t read it yet, apart from the opening bits. But It tears to pieces and rips apart this whole ATOS WCA fiasco.
I wanted to make sure those interested read it so i didn’t want to post it way back in the last WCA post in case no one see’s it.
http://labourlist.org/2014/04/beyond-the-barriers-new-report-exposes-appalling-failures-of-atos/
raining
no! i disagree with it already… 1st para point 7….scrap the WCA, at the very least those with MHP’s and cog impairment should be exempt from it…early harassment of the sick and disabled does not cause wellbeing, but compliance through guilt, being browbeaten, and /or others deciding what is for one’s own good, they should just pay our benefit entitlement and butt out, i do not agree with meritocracy nor capitalism how ever it is disguised….the human right of the sick and disabled person is to decide their own destiny, the human beings right to decide what is best for themselves is being violated…and WCA is a tool of that violation…the whole concept of sickness and disability benefits et al should be based on human dignity…scrap the WCA, and increase our benefits to ESC recommendations, end sanctions and conditionality now, cap and drastically reduce rents, build millions of eco-homes/eco villages and encourage work share, food coops, food growing coops, smallholdings etc etc….promote human permaculture…reduce retirement age for all to 60/61…a citizens wellbing income now!
I agree with most of what you have written obd, but have seen a documentary on some of these eco homes and those that are in them are complaining that nothing works right and ends up costing them more to run, I fail to see how, they are not storing solar power, using recycled water to flush, recycling waste etc. but the inhabitants were complaining.
A citizens income I am not in favour of unless it is for those whose well being is threatened, certainly not universal for the rich to get their grubby hands on.
g fawkes
these would mainly be water segal self build type timber constructed homes, with living roofs, limited requirements for foundations, as a well proven low cost build and design, extremely well insulated with triple glazing and recycled products and with solar capture…i’ve modified the citizens income with the addition of WELLBEING income, so there! ie enough income to provide human wellbeing…
The DWP idea of a home is either a wooden casket or an urn………..
geoff
yeah, that would be right…..
i thought of a burial at sea but can’t get anyone to dig water anymore, how times have changed….
Not much good to my brick layer son.
I’ve a few concerns about the latest from Spartacus Raining, I am appalled by their insistence that the best way to “tell it once” for those claiming sickness/disability benefits, is to have a set of “case workers” (for this read “social workers fresh out of college and not yet having much experience of anything” trundling relentlessly back into your life over several months as they compile your single case for receiving benefits. The case workers would then be following you around throughout your period on benefits and then for ever more as any job you got, would appear to still warrant endless nosiness, reporting and case management.
I know Spartacus do a very good job in highlighting the issues facing the sick and disabled, and I do support them. However, some of this report points to an over managed, equally complex and thoroughly investigated, monitored future for those who have the misfortune to need benefits. For me, that kind of future would be as repellent as the one we have now.
The other thing that occurred to me is that the report is written as if it is to be read by someone who cares and wants the best for the vulnerable. Clearly those who claim those benefits for themselves and their families care about this report. I don’t see that anyone in power being interested in what the report suggests.
The motive for the government is to get everyone off benefits, by hook or by crook. They want Social Security gone. They don’t want a fair and responsive system that provides secure and enduring support to the recipients of benefits. They just want us compliant, cheap or dead.
Why the fuck would anyone want fucking “social workers” meddling in their lives. Just another load of middle-class cunts keeping themselves in a cushy job and life-style.
And you right about the “fresh out of college bit” – you could have some fuckwit with no work or life experience and who still lives at home and drives a Corsa meddling about in your life. Some people just love to poke their noses in other peoples business.
Reblogged this on glynismillward189.
If after 2 whole years of intensive and personalised support on the Waste Programme, you’re still unfortunate enough to not have found a job, (hard to imagine I know) but..
What happens then?
Well back to Ingeus of course!
http://www.carleyconsult.com/uk/2014/03/25/tender-result-for-the-work-programme-leavers-pilot-in-greater-manchester
Our politicians are speaking with forked tongue again. If vacancies exist for unpaid trainees then vacancies exist for paid jobs. This is madness. The govt is paying companies to increase unemployment.
very true!
Reblogged this on Political Pip Spit or Swallow its up to You and commented:
When I started work there was no real need for a college degree most people didn’t have them. If you worked in an office you started as a junior doing all the bits and bobs and making the tea. It was minimum pay but it was pay and instead of fart arsing around you learned as you worked.
“CAPITA”……an organisation that puts greed before human lives.
“CAPITA”………everything the corrupt DWP NEEDS TO STEAL BONAFIDE DISABILITY BENEFITS FROM THE WEAKEST UTILISING THE SAME TICK BOX SUICIDE SYSTEM OF BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL CLAPTRAP AS ATOS……….
“NEW FACE, SAME WEAPONS, RESULTING IN MORE SUICIDE RELATED DEATHS TO ADD TO THE HIDDEN MORTALITY RATES OF THE DWP”
From: GEOFFREY REYNOLDS (Account suspended)
11 February 2013
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
Could you please tell me if BILL GUNNYEON, Chief medical advisor to
the DWP and also a Medical Director of Capita Healthcare, has
registered a “conflict of interest”.
How many times did Bill Gunnyeon meet with Gordon Waddell and
Mansel Aylward prior to the ATOS contract to undertake ESA
examinations on behalf of DWP?
Furthermore, will Bill Gunnyeon be receiving any form of
remuneration or reward, given that attractive contracts have been
allocated to both, Capita and ATOS.
Yours faithfully,
GEOFFREY REYNOLDS
Link to this
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bill_gunnyeon_dwp_chief_medical
CAPITA HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS…………
A qualified health professional, such as an occupational therapist or a nurse. All the health professionals are registered with a governing body such as the Health & Care Professions Council, and have undergone specially designed training approved by DWP.
…………IN SHORT, AN UNTRAINED CHARLATAN WITH VERY LIMITED KNOWLEDGE OF EITHER PHYSICAL OR MENTAL CONDITIONS.
SOMEONE WHO HOLDS A DWP SPONSORED CERTIFICATE THAT IS NOT WORTH THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON AND ONLY RECOGNISED BY THE CORRUPT, SECRETARY OF STATE…..
……….a tick box medical examination specifically designed for private health insurers to deny disability and steal benefits from those least likely to put up a resistance, those who are weak or challenged already.
“CAPITA, LOOSELY TRANSLATES TO THE NEW DISABILITY ASSASSIN”…………………………………………..
SON OF ATOS, SPAWN OF THE DEVIL, FROM THE LOINS OF THE MOST PSYCOPATHIC KILLER IN THE UK TODAY…..
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH………………………
I HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS AN AIRLINE PILOT.
ONE NIGHT I WENT WITH HIM AND HIS WIFE AND ANOTHER COUPLE FOR A MEAL IN SCARBOROUGH.
DURING THE MEAL HE PUT HIS CUTLERY DOWN AND TOLD US THAT HE WAS NOW WORKING UNDER BRANSON AND WENT ON TO TELL US HOW MUCH THE STAFF REALLY HATED HIM.
HE CUT STAFF BREAKS, AIRCRAFT TURNAROUND TIMES AND INCREASED WORKING HOURS WHILST CUTTING PAY………….
HE WENT ON TO SAY HOW ILL INFORMED THE PUBLIC ARE ABOUT HIS RUTHLESS COST CUTTING, SAYING YOU ONLY SEE THAT SMILING GUY WITH A BEARD ON THE ADVERTS, IN REALITY HE IS A FIRST CLASS CUNT DRIVEN BY GREED……..
“MORTALITY RATES STILL RISING,
BUT ATOS DID IT’S BEST,
SAY HELLO TO CAPITA,
AS THEY MOVE TO KILL THE REST”
Have Capita got the contract now? They’ll just be the same as ATOS. No better. WCA needs stopped.
Crapita are currently buggering up all Occupational Health departments in many parts of the NHS. Employees who have the misfortune to deal with them in this capacity, report them as being useless and unhelpful. Everything is geared around poorly trained phone advisors using a script and ticking boxes, then telling employees to go and see their GP.
When a person returns to NHS work after sickness of any kind (even a tiny cold) they get to have an interview with Crapita. This interview is full of tick boxes, patronising leaflets about healthy eating, exercise and cancer, all printed on nice, thick, glossy paper.
Monitoring of unwell employees and phased returns is farmed out to managers and even colleagues by Crapita.
Before Crapita got the contract, ATOS had it. No one could believe that Crapita could be worse than ATOS. These massive outsourcing giants have a surprise for every occasion. Crapita have turned out to be worse than ATOS in NHS OH. Much worse.
The NHS used to have a really good in house OH facility. It was set up to provide assistance to employees when life got tough. Over the years, I saw it help people in the most effective and appropriate way, because what they did was 100% based on what help the employee the employee said they needed. They listened. They used to have clout too, to stop anyone being forced to work nights for instance.
That’s all long gone.
As I understand it Raining, the government have been parading the WCA contract around Europe since last September when ATOS started making noises about leaving. Since then, the government have not attracted one bid to run the WCA. Probably because it is an obvious brand damage risk. Not that I believe Serco or G4S have an ounce of conscience or integrity when it comes to dealing with their “clients”
All we can hope for is that no one picks up the contract. But with G4S and Serco now freed up again to bid for contracts, I think Crapita might have some competition, if they bid for it.
What really needs to be done is a top level independant investigation into how the hell G4S are even still able to bid for government contracts at all, after it has been proved they have ripped off the taxpayer for £millions due the stupidity of Ministry of Justice.
G4S should have been shut down – a sceptic could be lead to believe that G4S and the other Private Providers are actually telling the government what to do and they are the one’s who run the government and Great Britain.
A lovely thought!
Obi, this is the truth they don’t want us to know. It’s no longer the men in grey behind the scenes, the top civil servants in charge, it’s the corporations who are milking our country dry!
I agree, we need a proper investigation on the corruption inside and outside of the corridors or power.
obi
G4S should stand for Good for sweet F. A.
lucy
now it is nip sickness and disability in the bud, coz it’s all in the mind and/or mental attitude, and work is good for one’s wellbeing OH..in others words if one has money to pay for one’s healthcare one gets it, but this is NOT true healthcare, this is maintenance to enable grind on till one drops…this heralds to, no money no healthcare. new for profit of “healthcare” madness era..focus on what one can do and not on what one can’t do, insanity, that they insist on…the sick and disabled are not profitable to treat or provide care for, so one will be worked to an early grave, and pay for “treatments” to keep one going until that time comes…the writings on the wall, and been on the wall so long that it is has faded…the spartacus report is nothing more than the same old same old reworded WCA….some people are born sick and disabled….but for many it creeps up on one for others it is a fairly sudden diagnosis, often work related, there is no compatibility/comparability of one diagnosis with another as this depends on many factors of personal circumstances, no one size fits all etc etc..for those who sickness and disability creeps up on they have already made lifestyle adaptions to cope, as the illness has progressed prior to saying enough’s enough, to be told one has not got it right or indeed have not is at the very least insulting, and downright rudeness, as they try to funnel all into the same sheep pen, grade worthy unworthy, less eligibility, see jv’s excellent workhouse posts and connected post on dwp report re training funding for sick and disabled people…ALL sickness and disability boils down to one generic factor loss/lack of energy when compared to a fit and healthy human being…benefits are paid to us for this very reason, to mitigate for this profound loss of energy…..we will only treat you if you work and pay our wages…our whole culture has been made terrified of unemployment, bar a phew who have set themselves up to profit from our suffering, so many come up with enterprise schemes that try to gain or have state approval, who was the instigator of these enterprise schemes? they do anything to get a pay cheque…they have the masses (peasants and surfs) fighting for the scraps from the capitalists phew’s table, know thy enemy…see excellent work of dr lucy reynolds…
I’m in total agreement with you obd.
Now, you have added considerably to my reading lists over the last few months, and this has been to good effect. Thank you. Dr Lucy Reynolds is a new one to me, I’ll seek her out. Ever onwards…. 🙂
So called “healthcare” is just to patch the worker bees up to put them back on the production line… see how many more miles can be gotten before they are sent to the scrap-yard at the end of there service life. Maybe that is why “healthcare” was established in the first place… because they found it was more costly to keep reproducing worker bees than to patch up the existing ones.
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now cameron claiming to be god yes god hes been sent rather like dyno rod to clear the stinhole that is the uk of the sick poor disabled etc ive complained to justin welby i dont expect a reply but this proves beyond doubt that cameron is ill and dangerous thoughts?
Let the government give them all computers where they can access a multitude of books from the web.
I like the way the government have brought in the ham from hollywood to protect their burghers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Burgher_people
I love the anti-Branson posts. Before the righteous indignation becomes all-consuming it might be worth noting that Virgin Media was purchased by Liberty Global. Richard Branson does not own or manage the company.
I also think you are making a huge mistake protesting against Traineeships. They are aimed at young people with very few qualifications who are not able to secure an apprenticeship or other employment. The idea is to provide basic skills and some work experience so the person is in a far better position to get a job. Taking on a person who has limited skills and experience for a handful of weeks does not make money for the ’employer’. Organisations are being persuaded to participate as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. Stopping them providing young people with work experience is just plain daft.
There is nothing wrong with work experience providing those that are training get a livable wage and worthwhile training, not the employers or charitable organizations getting paid to take them on.
Employers offering Traineeships don’t get paid. Trainees continue to receive their JSA/ESA. At the end of the Traineeship the employer may hire a person. If not, the trainee leaves with a nationally recognised qualification (such as a BTEC) including basic functional skills (numeracy and literacy) and also has some work experience on their CV which will help when applying for full time roles.
There’s nothing to stop people in traineeship positions being paid and being given day release to study for English or Maths, or other qualifications. That’s what used to happen, why should tax payers and unemployed people’s unpaid work cover the bills for private companies to train their staff – that’s if they do actually bother to train them in something and don’t just have them stacking shelves all day.
@ Johnny Void What you are describing is an Apprenticeship. Traineeships are a specific programme. The end result must include nationally recognised qualifications in job relevant skills. The intended outcome is that a person can then secure an Apprenticeship. Having a young person spend a few weeks doing some tasks does not bring the employer financial rewards. The hassle in inducting and supervising a low skilled individual is more than the value derived from a few weeks free labour.
You may disagree with mandatory work activity. But in attacking Traineeships you are picking on the wrong target and hurting those you mean to help.
Not so sure Johnny Void disagrees with mandatory work activity – do a search for one of Johnny’s posts: “Mandatory Work Activity – I’ll have some more of that please 🙂 “
Our housing association trains kids who are already in schools or colleges in thier chosen or non-chosen occupations, so why do they need unpaid training after school?
Oh Richard… Richard, Richard, Richard.
Most entry-level job tasks can be learned within a couple of days’ training. You really want to believe there’s a load of 16-18 year olds out there who are so backwards it would take them more than two days to learn how to put things on a shelf, or work a till, or clean a floor?
National qualifications in order to get an apprenticeship. Don’t make me laugh. If you can’t see a money-making fiddle right before your eyes that’s fine, but the way you talk… I really think you believe you *know* something about this.
Hilarious. Go on then, what basic entry level job skills take more than a week to impart? What does the special certificate look like? Lmao… “Grade 3 tea making skills. Grade 2 moving things with arms skills. DISTINCTION in using a cloth to wipe a surface”
Get real.
I’m not so sure about making the tea love, I can never figure out whether to put the milk in first or last 🙂
hehheh I am a tea and coffee making legend I used to shave 15mins off my workday every morning in the glass factory by making tea and coffee for everyone in the factory. workers first, bosses last :p
Oh Sarah Sarah Twice
Traineeships are aimed at those who are unemployed and have little work experience. They are NOT aimed at those who already have the skills and experience needed to start an Apprenticeship or find work. So yes – there is a lot for a person to learn.
Putting things on a shelf may involve using a stock computer, understanding stock rotation, health and safety, customer service, reliability and responsibility etc. This is more than a couple of days. At least when taken seriously and done properly.
A Level 2 (equivalent to grades A – C, GCSE) Certificate in WorkSkills BTEC requires about 130 hours. A Diploma about 370. You can see what is covered at http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/Workskills/BTEC%20L2%20Wrkskills%20Issue%203%20Pre-publication%20draft%20Feb%202014.pdf. Perhaps you think this knowledge is worthless. Perhaps you are happy to consign people to unskilled serfdom. Or perhaps you are so cynical you tar everything with the same jaundiced brush.
Richard when I was 16 I left school without even 5 GCSEs. I went straight into work the day I left as an NHS receptionist. Then I did an apprenticeship at a legal firm, where I left becuase they weren’t training me to do anything and they were using me to be a cheap receptionist. I moved to the IOM, where my first job was a silver service waitress. Then I worked for M&S as a barista. I did all these jobs before I was 18. The training was fully paid and even silver service took no more than a week.
//Putting things on a shelf may involve using a stock computer, understanding stock rotation, health and safety, customer service, reliability and responsibility etc. This is more than a couple of days. At least when taken seriously and done properly.//
I’ve worked in local shops too. You’re chatting shit, my old managers would laugh and call you an out of touch clown.
Also recruitment, three years ago, and it was the biggest load of shit I ever did in my life. Loads of people who talk like you. Walked out of that job when I realised it’s not even a real job and people can find jobs themselves. Oh and everyone who worked there was thick and a wanker apart from the ones who only stayed a couple years.
I see your .pdf. It’s a ridiculous course and a waste of time and money.
//Perhaps you are happy to consign people to unskilled serfdom.//
Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that one half of the public is being told that these are good and useful courses being delivered well, while the other half (who actually have to go to them) will tell you that delivery is entirely dependent on the service provider and can vary. You seem to have a real stake in defending this shit, can I assume a dog in the fight?
Perhaps serfdom doesn’t even need to exist and we’re just being nasty to the poorest people in society and making them jump through hoops.
Perhaps we used to have an industrialsed working class and now there are no jobs in factories, and so now their only value to capitalism is as units to be shifted from one crap fake “helping” industry to the next, to make money for others.
Perhaps you buy it hook line and sinker.
Edexcel were the people who were getting their (exam paper) questions and answers all mixed up not so long ago …
EXPLAIN HOW YOU WOULD AFFORD TO LIVE WHILST BEING ON ONE, THE ACCREDITATION YOU WOULD GET AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A JOB AT THE END PAYING A LIVING WAGE?
whilst your at it, explain how you can receive an apprenticeship at COSTA COFFEE or STARBUCKS?
The person lives on the same benefits they were on previously. So they are no worse off. They also get travel expenses. So they are no worse off. They get nationally recognised vocational qualifications (such as a BTEC). So they are better off. They have something on their CV. So they are better off. If these qualifications and experience help them get a job they are better off.
In this country we put people down who work in hospitality. In France, Italy and many other countries these are respected jobs. Go into a busy coffee shop and watch how the staff swiftly and efficiently serve large numbers of customers, producing a wide variety of drinks. These jobs require skills and it is inappropriately arrogant to knock it.
Wake up to the real world where a can stacking certificate is the only thing the youngsters get……………….
My apprenticeship was also over 5 years, rather than being qualified to stack tins or pull coffee, i had the real Mcoy, not a make believe worthless certificate similar to an ATOS health care professional.
……….sounds like you like the idea of serfs running round after you!
Why not move to the continent or just sidle up to the playing fields of Eton?
The amounts of benefits being paid are laughable. They are not enough to live on in the true sense of the word (ie. being able to keep body and soul together & not live entirely outside of the rest of society – if reliant soleley on these indadquate amounts). It is virtually impossible around 80\90 percent of the time to be able to replace items of clothing/shoes that need replacing and to afford to pay travel costs on a regular and ongoing basis. Some of these things are do-able some of the time but being in any work role requires a basic, consistent level of income to be able to support (physically and mentally) being able to sustain it/do it adequately – let alone well.
So already there is not enough energy being generated to try to find suitable work, and certainly not enough energy to do any form of work (whatever the name given to it) unless the amount is increased (it would have to be at least doubled).
Add in the jcp’s campaign of demoralising and demonising anyone who is forced to deal with them – the various conditions attached to being able to continue to receive the measly amounts; all of this in itself is exhausting and there is very little brain-space left to actually have any kind of a life … until the amounts are increased to something approaching resaonable people cannot be asked to do any more. Some of the roles I have seen advertised lately are jobs I have done & can still do & did do over the past 20 or so years – rebranded as apprenticeship roles …. so they are age-limited and pay severely-limited.
Only
richard
a nominal descriptive error does not render the argument void….
it is interesting to note that you advocate an up to 6mth job interview, without pay…i did a 5yr apprenticeship, an apprenticeship IS supervised paid work experience….you also imply that schools are poor at educating people…so what are your proposals to improve educational standards, other than to blame the pupils? surely it is failing schools not failing pupils, and i say it is/was neither, until the political masking took engineered public opinion in that direction…there simply are no new 4m extra wellbeing jobs available in our failing economy see jobs puzzle solution..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22874889
it is a fact that capitalism is designed to and does only bring lavish incomes to less than 10% of the global population…the rest suffer by cause of it….capitalism in all of it’s forms and guises, has an extremely serious detrimental affect on human and habitat wellbeing/health….
@OBD A Traineeship is not an Apprenticeship. But it is a start and for many will lead to an Apprenticeship.
I don’t blame the pupils. If someone deserves blame it is probably the parents.
If any of the schemes dreamed up by successive governments to cater for the needs of young people are to go by, the latest Trainee/Internships will be an unmitigated disaster. Very few young people will gain real jobs with wages or real qualifications. These schemes do not work because they are inadequately funded, run by people more interested in profit (scheme providers who will administer the Traineeships etc) and will not pay for real courses leading to real qualifications.
Every single one of these schemes relies on promises of future real employment. Not one of these schemes has delivered it to more than a very small percentage of those who take part. The history of these failure based schemes goes way back to the very early 80s. Each one rolled out is a fiddled about with version of the last.
Proper apprenticeships and traineeships should attract the going wage for the job at trainee level. This must be higher than benefits and should be paid as a wage, not an allowance. They should include courses run at colleges by qualified tutors, or properly trained and experienced workplace trainers, who are already doing the job they are training the person in.
Not one of the schemes I have seen is ever about being properly trained, doing a job and being paid for it. Everything about this latest scheme stinks.
No @Lucy. Being long term unemployed stinks – especially from a young age. All those who complete a Traineeship get something useful from it and some will get a lot.
Who cares whether it is a college or a private training provider that delivers the programme. Both receive payment for providing services and both are judged by Ofsted on their performance.
It is also worth noting that only organisations with a grade 1 or 2 Ofsted can deliver Traineeships – i.e the best colleges and providers.
Richard, have you been on one of these schemes that have run in one form or another over the last 30+ years? Have you worked on one of them?
These these schemes do not run according to the claims of the glossy, expensive, promotional materials.
Personally, I don’t care who provides training. But, the trainers, the educators must be qualified, competent and effective whatever the organisation is. It’s less likely to find good practice in education outside of colleges.
The private providers, who you have faith in are usually heaving with a mass of unqualified and inexperienced “trainers” They frequently are not qualified to teach what they attempt to. This results in no one gaining anything. With current schemes there is no funding to train the trainers or the advisors, yet alone fund validated courses for the hapless scheme participant.
If training only happens in the workplace and the only people monitoring it are the same Work Programme Style Advisers, then no one is going to get trained or assessed competently. It won’t happen. Training in the workplace takes up time to do it properly, and money.
Thirty years ago, young people were leaving schemes with no qualifications and no jobs, so were adults. The situation is worse now. The proposed new Traineeships won’t be funded or run effectively. History provides the proof.
The current method of running all government funded schemes uses the Black Box Approach. This means that providers, colleges or private providers only receive guidelines about running the scheme. They can run it how they please, and all are doing so. The chance of auditing them accurately is sabotaged by allowing the providers to make it up as they go along and operate within the actions of a chaotic system, the DWP.
Young people are being sold short in education and training. The solution isn’t more flimsy, exploitative schemes. The solution is to invest in the people via investing in communities and industries that are sustainable to all. Right now, every one of these schemes is a mere, swift opportunity for cowboys to gallop in, rake in the output related funding and gallop back over the hill.
@ Lucy. Black box is DWP. Traineeships are SFA/EFA. Participants get nationally recognised qualifications and a few minutes on the Ofqual site (http://ofqual.gov.uk) makes clear that achievement of learning is achieved in an independently verified fashion.
Black Box is not the DWP. The black box is the promotional euphemism given to the lack of real actionable/auditable rules that those running the programme must adhere to. The black box is a mandate for the providers to do everything on the cheap, defraud the tax payer and provide another way of chiselling down the unemployment figures without actually doing so.
Quality of provision has never been considered in any of these current schemes, because every scheme has only one motive – to reduce the number of people claiming social security benefits. Not one of these schemes is driven by anything other than ideology. These schemes are not about getting the young qualified, experienced or employed.
In the 1980s, the young people claiming the Training Allowance (as young people’s YTS benefits used to be known) were not counted as unemployed, when clearly they were. They were not employed in real jobs. They didn’t receive wages, they received benefits. Employed Status YTS was a con too. Youngsters would be taken on, paid a low wage, often only equivalent to the weekly benefit rates and the employer received a whacking great lump sum, supposedly to cover training/college costs, but often just used to pay the “wage” Frequently, at the end of the scheme (2 years) the youngster would be led to believe that they would be staying on as they were now a trainee. Unscrupulous employers would keep them on the books until the scheme end, then they’d be told that business was bad and they were being let go.
Cue the constant churn of individuals cycling through benefits, useless scheme, benefits, useless scheme, benefits. We see the same now, both with adults and young people, through every single one of the current schemes. A constant and pointless churning and destruction of individuals who all have potential and deserve to be treated humanely.
Richard, please avail yourself of some real experience in these matters. Mingle with those involved on the “other” side of the desk and you will find that what those here type to you, is true. There is a wealth of experience here in exactly how the system works, its history and the ideology behind it.
You don’t appear to have the faintest idea how these schemes run in reality nor any idea of the chip paper nature of certificates handed out in lieu of real training to anyone unfortunate enough to end up on any government funded employment scheme. My statement applies to recognised national qualifications too.
Yes, all the schemes set up in the last 30 years have carried the same claims to the quality of the training and certification. Thirty years ago, there was considerably more available in the form of internal and external verification, audits, paper trails and plenty of qualified and skilled people trying to provide training and education in a system that, as now, will not provide a realistic budget for doing so. This is how the quality of provision was further denigrated to the level it is now. The delivery of training and education has been and is being stymied by corruption in the assessment and verification system. The pressure on verifiers to pass substandard work is immense. This is because the emphasis is on money, not the real development of the young person undertaking the training.
The same offensive ethos is applied to all adults on these schemes, be they able bodied, sick or disabled. The difference between now and thirty years ago is that now, the system allows all benefits to be sanctioned for long periods and people are driven to destitution. For those without family or friends, at whatever age, those people will be punished for rejecting exploitative placements or inappropriate, poorly delivered training.
To provide decent quality training and education, you need more than trolls extolling the virtues of glossy DWP brochures and press releases.
I was awarded a “Certificate of Achievement” from Reed in Partershit (with the Devil) for successful completion of the “Journey”. It takes pride of place in the front room 🙂
Lucy, I think it would benefit your jobsearch if I were to refer you to the “How to Find a Job” module and a CV writing workshop 🙂
I will also be making a referral to the basic literacy and numeracy module 🙂 I also feel that a mandatory work activity placement would be of benefit to you 🙂
I am also making a referral for the “How to Use the Internet” module 🙂
JC+, is it my birthday? I feel so special with all that attention. I hope you manage to cop a glance at the guidelines, ‘cos sadly, you’ll find that I cannot be mandated, for anything at all 🙂
Now that Richard bloke/troll/thing, I think he needs to feel special too, perhaps you could help him out? 🙂
Not sure if it’s your birthday or not, Lucy, but it was guy fawke’s birthday (born 1590) yesterday!
@ Sammi I was awarded a “Certificate of Achievement” for completing Working Links “Cauldron” course. It took pride of place in the dust-bin 🙂
Oliver Cromwell
Guy Fawkes lived long enough to see you bite the dust though!
In peoples remembrance that is!
richard
i continue to refer you to mine, and other posters who disagree with you…you are clearly claiming that unemployment is caused by the unemployed
@obd where am I ‘clearly claiming that unemployment is caused by the unemployed’? Just copy and paste the relevant post as well as its date and time. I don’t believe that unemployment is caused by the unemployed and cannot recall writing that it is.
richard
it is implied implied in your posts…and long term unemployment stinks, because of the abuse, long term unemployed get from the likes of you, long term unemployment is solved by jobs, there are no jobs…see my post above for details…stop blaming the unemployed for there being no jobs…
So @OBD – you have gone from ‘clearly’ to ‘implied’. Perhaps you can go so far as to admit that I have not stated what you accuse me of. Indeed I explicitly stated the opposite. Specifically: ‘I don’t believe that unemployment is caused by the unemployed’
richard
nonsense…
WOW!
“Because the only other explanation is genetics and that certainly doesn’t reflect well on the parents.” explanation for WHAT?? explain what you mean…
“If someone deserves blame it is probably the parents”. Lol – I take it you’ve never been involved in parenting, Richard? As well as spending 40 hours a week working outside the home in return for wages that often do not even cover the bills, or being required to ‘actively seek’ any kind of employment; on top of cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, and all the other unpaid work involved in raising children; we’re also expected to teach them all the skills that future employers might want? Isn’t it time you woke up to the reality of life for most under capitalism Richard?
Hi @Suzy Being a parent isn’t easy. Some do it well and others don’t. Of course we can blame the schools, the government, the council and Uncle Tom Cobley when it doesn’t work out. It’s best to ignore all those instances of people who have been great parents even in difficult circumstances. Because the only other explanation is genetics and that certainly doesn’t reflect well on the parents.
Richard, seriously, are you just a troll? Or was it not your intention to miss my point, patronise me, conveniently ignore the issue of capitalism and focus the discussion on genetics instead?
Suzy,
(From memory, all of the above), and I think GuyF has said similar. Certainly a losing battle of semantics/nitpicking with (sooner or later) supercillious & snidey comments thrown in for good measure …
@Suzy What was your point? Your post seemed to suggest that the challenges of life meant that looking after children fell down the list of priorities. Re-reading it I can see that you refer to ‘helping with homework’. If this makes your list then your children probably won’t leave school with minimal qualifications and limited self-discipline, requiring programmes such as Traineeships in order to rectify a poor education.
‘Or was it not your intention to miss my point, patronise me’ – pot calling the kettle black?
Fuck off Dick!
At the risk of feeding a troll (and no, I’m still not convinced you’re not one), I was asking you to look at the bigger picture, the reality of living under capitalism, the system you favour as the ‘fairest’. Most people are well aware that life is challenging and that parenting is an especially difficult job. Fewer seem to realise though that under capitalism, people are treated as commodities that merely serve to keep capitalism going for the benefit of the few; for the Richard Branston’s of this world. You see my job as a parent as raising ‘skilled’ and compliant workers of the future since capitalism has no use for anyone who is ‘unemployable’. But as it becomes increasingly greedy, it keeps changing the goal posts and expecting more and more of people. If we want to make life truly worth living then surely it’s the system that needs to change.
The idea is not to provide “basic skills and some work experience”. Everyone who’s ever got out of bed, brushed their teeth, and done school work already has that. Age 5 to 16 in this country is six hours a day, five days a week doing paperwork in a special office called a classroom.
The actual idea behind this scheme, like all the others, is for the government to provide private companies with workers that they don’t have to pay.
Frankly, people have a better chance of getting a job if you don’t replace all the jobs with slave labour.
@Kitbash Very many young people leave school without the skills that employers want. Whatever you personally believe, if the prospective employer does not believe that a person has what the organisation is looking for then the organisation won’t make a job offer. It therefore makes sense to bridge the gap in a way the employer is comfortable with and thus facilitate employment.
If a person can get a job without going on a Traineeship programme then great. If the trainee leaves the programme early because a paid job has been found then great.
What is the harm in providing a short programme of job relevant training and work experience?
Why should the unemployed pander to the schemes of employers that are no more interested in providing work than the man in the moon?
These schemes are all about fiddling the employment, or should that be unemployment figures for a dead social and economic system such as capitalism.
Control freak businessmen are not happy if they cannot humiliate those that are unemployed by constantly preaching work ethic to them, many of whom work by helping their families and others not sit around watching Jeremy Kyle or benefits street as the propagandists would have the electorate believe, without being put through constant job searching, only to receive rejection letters from companies and government who are actually the ones that are remiss at doing their own jobs, i.e. being wealth creators for all not just themselves,
For the past 30 years training has replaced employment in many areas, thus providing work for those on the trainee/apprenticeship gravy train, many of whom are FAILED business people, due to FAILED capitalism.
@Guy Fawkes – do you really believe the crap you write? Do you ever take a moment and re-read it? Might be worth doing so once in a while – even if the sole purpose is to have a laugh.
I do like a laugh, but it is usually at people like you who are incapable of seeing or wanting to see past the end of their noses.
What isn’t funny is that you are probably part of the deluded,derogatory, disinformation, gravy train.
probably should read undoubtedly!
Do you really believe the crap you write because no-one else does, even those on the gravy train.
I noticed that no one commented on the list obi put up of people allowed to access our ujm accounts with or without our permission. It just shows that people have been wasting their time printing all those paper copies to avoid giving access when secretly someone in every jobcentre could look regardless and inform other staff.
What’s happened to our rights?
Rob
Where is the list?
The trick is of course to boycott all “essential” services you currently must have with Virgin. Like broadband and phone or insurance. Too many are happy to go all Meldrew but still use the likes of Tesco (workfare exploiter) and even continue to vote Tory or Labour. The irony is outstanding.
SCAR – perhaps a little ‘reality check’ needed. Much as most of us abhor using companies and organisations that exploit and profit from us in one way or another, it is a fact that for most of us the economic reality we find ourselves in finds us almost forced to use the services/shop at those very companies that are the worst exploiters. We cannot afford the luxury of shopping at the local farmer’s market, with the usually highly inflated prices that only the relatively well-off can afford.
Those of us who are on benefits would mostly love to be in a position where we could shop elsewhere than Tesco or Poundland, but the sad fact is that we have little choice but to shop in those places. Perhaps it might now appear hypocritical, but I have also been involved in pickets of Poundland, and will no doubt be involved in pickets of Tesco too.
Even those companies not ostensibly involved in the rank exploitation of the worst kind are still culpable, as they still seek to maintain capitalism and the pursuit of greed over people. It’s all capitalism, and yes, it needs to be abolished, but until that day all of us have little choice – it’s a case, in extremis, of shop at Tesco/Asda/Lidl et al, or starve.
Only when people have access to real, workable alternatives will this change.
It is an irony, and I doubt that many of us who are active in opposing the system of capitalism are unaware of this irony either, but so often there is no alternative, or if an alternative exists, we can’t afford the prices.
S C A R
Perhaps you would like to print a list of companies and retailers that are not profiteering from cheap labour that people would feel happy about subscribing to, that are not in the back pocket of politicians or are actually owned by public figures, who would doubly line their own pockets from both their public and private interests.
4 Weeks, and you can’t offer work for those 4 weeks ? On the job training, isn’t that what companies used to do ? There are plenty of companies that benefit from 4 weeks of unpaid labour. Seen it first hand a manager say we will just go get another, jobseeker, after sacking a jobseeker who was learning their so called job. So NO they have no interest in hiring once the value of work becomes a joke where companies exploit the workers worth and get paid by the government to do so.
Dangle that imaginary carrot of a job, when we all know its who you know not what you know.
Have you ingeus/JC/con/toff fuds not got nothing better to do than pretend, all these schemes that devalue the workplace – are for our benefit and to help us. Why don’t you spend some of those profits and pay a man his worth. If Branson can afford to buy rockets, he can find some loose change to at least pay minimum wage, instead of ruining peoples live with the delusion that an employer is going to see 4 week worthless course as any difference to the chance of someone finding work.
Employers don’t get paid ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/traineeships-programme
Well,well,well that companies logo looks familiar right above a funding page
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/skills-funding-agency
“We fund skills training for further education (FE) in England. We support over 1,000 colleges, private training organisations, and employers with more than £4 billion of funding each year”
@Che the facts are here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/279881/Traineeships_Fact_Sheet_Employer.pdf
There are some employers with Skills Funding Agency delivery contracts (McDonalds, the Army, etc.). But the vast majority of employers providing Traineeships don’t receive payment.
Where i live they utilise unpaid labour to fill job vacancies. They lay permanent staff off and utilise the slave freebies over the course of a few weeks then ring up for more to replace them.
They are nothing but a slave bank for pay abusers………
who wants to upload or download government lies.
‘who wants to upload or download government lies.’ Or do anything that might lead to a fact or an analysis that would lead to useful actions. Far better to be the bar-room braggart. Spouting loudly to anyone who will listen. Spewing offence to those you disagree with. Trying to be a leader whilst desperately seeking the approval of others. All the while failing to realise that your foundations are built on sand and bar in which you hold forth is at the dodgy end of town, sells bad beer and is scheduled for demolition.
DogBone may be a one trick pony with a bad case of Tourette’s. However, others on here clearly are better than that. Despite this, just about every comment is negative and blames others. There is no engagement with ideas or debate. It is just self-reinforcing paranoia.
I did not come on here to troll. I am genuinely curious about the ideas of others who see the world differently from me. I made my first post because I am concerned that protests against work placements would include Traineeships and a scheme that has the potential to do good would get tarnished. I may be wrong and am open to discovering why I should change my views. But all I got was the behaviour of playground bullies.
Anyway, enjoy the rest of the weekend and the gorgeous weather (unless this too is a DWP conspiracy to catch you out). I won’t rise to the bait any further.
Well i don’t think your a troll, yet, but I can tell you’re actually a she.
When are you going to actually try and answer a simple question.
How can we fit 10 unemployed people into 1 vacancy?
Don’t say there’s lots of vacancies.
Don’t say help with basic maths and literacy to the help the 10 all compete with each other.
Don’t say work experience to give the skills employers want, as we all know employers are only upping the qualifications and experience because they’re already snowed under with applications.
Have a go.
@Another Fine Mess
How can we fit 10 unemployed people into 1 vacancy?
One can’t. But I think there are more vacancies out there than people realise. There are twice as many jobs advertised now as a year ago and unemployment is falling. So some people are getting the jobs. Others, inevitably, are not.
Just as we cannot cure all hunger and disease, we can cure some. When there is a famine in Africa our aid is a drop in an ocean of need. But each person who does get help is better off than they otherwise would be and surely it is better to do something than nothing.
The funding model for provision of basic literacy and/or numeracy skills first requires that a diagnostic test is undertaken. Therefore a functional skills course should only be offered to a person who has low skills in the area.
Will completing a course automatically result in a person getting a job? No
Will having low literacy/numeracy skills prevent a person getting many jobs? Yes
Will a person benefit outside of work from having literacy/numeracy skills? Yes
Employment is demand and supply and therefore competitive. An employer offering an interesting and well paid job in a good location will get more applicants keen to secure the post than for a less desirable role. An applicant who has more to offer will have a greater number of job offers to select from.
Of course it is harder for the long term unemployed, the older and those with disabilities. But one either gives up (and that is not a pleasant option) and/or perseveres and/or improves what one offers and/or comes up with an alternative choice (such as self-employment).
As to the point of employers upping their minimum qualifications. It will be true for some but is often a daft way of hiring. Qualifications should be a minimum threshold in order to be able to do the job. For most jobs just having better qualifications has no impact on job performance. It is an individual’s personal qualities that really make the difference (motivation, attitude, common sense, responsibility, reliability etc.)
“There are twice as many jobs advertised now as a year ago and unemployment is falling. So some people are getting the jobs. Others, inevitably, are not.”
Labour Market Statistics March 2013: There were 494,000 job vacancies for December 2012 to February 2013
Labour Market Statistics March 2014: There were 588,000 job vacancies for December 2013 to February 2014
There’s even a graph: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/march-2013/statistical-bulletin.html#tab-Vacancies
Thank you @JV. Really interesting. It also demonstrates ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’.
My data comes from aggregated job board and employer site listings (essentially a robot sweep of vacancy listings). My data just counts a job listing and does not differentiate between full time, part time and contract. I am just comparing total numbers vs total numbers and looking at the percentage difference and assuming the data set characteristics will be broadly similar over the two periods.
The ONS data is based on 6,000 organisations. The challenge they have is that few organisations of any size actually know precisely how many vacancies they have on a given day. Each department gets on and does its own thing. Of course they are also comparing like for like so it is the percentage difference that is interesting. And their number is lower than mine.
The March ONS data does show that 459,000 more people are in employment now than a year ago (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/march-2014/sty-employment.html). So without arguing over which side of an egg to crack open, perhaps we can just agree that there are more opportunities now than was the case at the height of the recession and that for some the situation is easier?
The data also shows many of them are in self-employment, whether they are actually making any money or not is unknown. People on traineeships, and other workfare schemes are also included in that figure. So it’s not really known how much things have got better, about all that can be said is it isn’t very much. But even before the recession there were nowhere near enough jobs for everybody, there never has been, unemployment is a structural part of capitalism, which is why social security should be an entitlement, because no matter what you do to claimants, there will never be enough work to go round.
Unpaid work, whether mandatory or not, only makes that situation worse and acts to lower wages and conditions for everyone. Traineeships do not necessarily lead to a qualification as you have claimed, except for those who need maths and English, other than that there is no requirement to provide any real, acredited training, and the unpaid work element can last for six months. Osborne has announced that Traineeships will become mandatory for people under 21, or they will be sent on some other form of workfare instead. No-one is opposed to young people being trained, but if they are working, and people on traineeships are, then they should be paid.
richard
1 report that disputes the ONS figures is the CIPD report used by the STUC to claim that to aug ’13 as many as 1m people are actually on zero hrs contracts…..85000 people in scotland alone…..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-27001024
@OBD You are right. Zero hours contracts can (not always) be a very shoddy way of employing people.
richard
i made a statement that implied many things, it is interesting that you chose to define my/this statement in the way that you did and attempt to put words into my mouth, in other words not address ALL the implications of my statement above…you also have said,”it is an individual’s personal qualities that really make the difference (motivation, attitude, common sense, responsibility, reliability etc.)” let me add other “attributes” “qualities” to your list, discipline, self control, PMA, self-management…all as teachable skills…
you are nothing but a life coach/life coach advisor/guru…ie a behaviorist…and your proposition depends on there being enough worthwhile (i call them wellbeing jobs ie jobs that pay enough and can comfortably done on a daily basis), jobs available…there simply are not…you exclude info that is not palatable to your notions….to liberate a person, one must 1st aid in the clearance of cog fog…ie get rid of the root cause of a persons distress, unpack it to give it light of day…then cog(nitive) fog clears, a profound change in the persons reasoning/thinking always happens, they reject your theories and the capitalist work ethic…and learn very easily about what they are passionate about learning…i reject your notions, every form of capitalism and promised land politics…we are back to sq 1…as if there are new wellbeing jobs out there people always take them and always learn what is needed to be learnt to do the job…as generations of working class people before have always done…the only barrier to employment is not enough jobs…the working classes are not trained to take jobs beyond our/their defined class structure…we are trained to people the factories, and to labour/toil in the fields…but we can set ourselves free, once cog fog is cleared one rejects your notions and capitalism in all of it’s guises…
@jv I agree that social security should be an entitlement. However, I also believe that the State’s obligation to the citizen should be mirrored by the citizen’s obligation to the State. In practical terms this means the citizen should attempt to look after himself before relying on the State to step in.
I would prefer that Traineeships are paid, especially longer ones. I am much less fussed about short work-experience placements. The current rules are that they cannot be as participants are on JSA/ESA. As it happens, some employers get around this through payment of allowances and other such ‘bonuses’.
‘Unpaid work, whether mandatory or not, only makes that situation worse and acts to lower wages and conditions for everyone.’ – You are correct where this happens on a large scale and for the unskilled. It will not affect those with skills and clear capabilities. Market forces place a premium on their time.
‘Traineeships do not necessarily lead to a qualification as you have claimed, except for those who need maths and English’ – You are correct. However, I think you will find providers do chose accredited qualifications.
richard
quoting kennedy is not convincing….
“However, I also believe that the State’s obligation to the citizen should be mirrored by the citizen’s obligation to the State. In practical terms this means the citizen should attempt to look after himself before relying on the State to step in.” you may well believe this, but people already do, try to be independent of the state, free of it’s imposed sanctions and conditionality, brutal arbitary punishments..
btw i prefer themselves instead of himself….
there is no such contract, social, moral, or otherwise, and never will be such a contract enshrined in law, for many obvious constitutional reasons…the issues raised in answering the obligations of the citizen/state are monumental and far too big for this blog in one post, but you already know that! plus coupled to grains of truth and half truths, this is pure behaviorist rhetoric on your part…all you want is reaction…if it were answered and then proved you to be wrong, you would simply ignore that, and find some other phrase, to trigger a reaction.
“How can we fit 10 unemployed people into 1 vacancy?” – haven’t you never heard of jobshare, Richard?
Job Club
What good will job share be unless you have a living wage to match the part-time hours you will be working when taking half a job?
Richard states However, I also believe that the State’s obligation to the citizen should be mirrored by the citizen’s obligation to the State. In practical terms this means the citizen should attempt to look after himself before relying on the State to step in.
What he is forgetting is that people have looked after themselves before relying on the state to step in, THEY HAVE PAID INTO A NATIONAL INSURANCE SYSTEM that guarantees them benefits if unemployed, so Richard can just go and pedal his NEGATIVE paranoid comments about the welfare state to someone who wants to listen, not on a site that deals with the unemployed largely.
He says he has come on here to listen and learn he is a LIAR!
Sorry @ guy. Last time I checked, people qualified for benefits irrespective of whether they have previously worked and thus contributed to National Insurance. Some countries have an insurance based system where a person’s payments in subsequently qualify the individual for unemployment benefit, sometimes linked to previous earnings.
We don’t and this is why society can place expectations on those receiving JSA/ESA.
No doubt you can sidestep this rather important detail and throw another insult in my direction or call me names. After all, you have a pattern of boorish behaviour to live up to.
The only bore who is drenched in boorish behaviour on here is you Richard.
The system was developed to incorporate those that were rendered idle due to capitalisms failure, there have been very few times if any throughout history that there has been full employment, but the welfare state was only brought to fruition fully in the 50’s and covered anyone that was unemployed even if they had not contributed.
What you
Those employed in the job sector are a waste of space and are eating into the welfare budget that was intended for the unemployed not greedy middleclass scroungers.
Well thanks for having a go. But all you’ve described is a way to increase the competition between the 9 who didn’t get the job. Which is mostly a waste of time and money because that was the problem in the first place, and there’s no job for them to get any way!
I thought you’d at least try to say a ‘more educated population actually leads to more jobs’, or something.
There are people who’ve previously been in work for decades, and are now unemployed, and their english and maths are terrible by anyone’s standard. But they weren’t made redundant because of their poor maths and english, and they’re not unemployed now because of it. And besides even if they were, everyone now gets an expertly crafted covering letter and CV from their JCP or Waste Programme adviser now don’t they. 😮
Curing a disease, or feeding someone in Africa is quite different from the UK labour market as it doesn’t just cause another person diseased or hungry somewhere else. – Come to think of it in the case of the UK it does!
An applicant who has more to offer will have a greater number of job offers to select from.
Yes, that’s problem for many of the 2.5 million unemployed – choosing which job offer to select. LOL
Back on planet Earth, I think one of the main reasons why the currently unemployed need help with literacy and numeracy is quite simply that there’s EU funding available for it….and then there’s Learn Direct aimed at 11 year olds, not to worry there’s funding for that aswell.
Nearly 50,000 people every day swap between employed and unemployed, the main reason those unemployed are in that group is because of lack of jobs.
AFM
.
In your reply to Dick head, you state:-
“There are people who’ve previously been in work for decades, and are now unemployed, and their english and maths are terrible by anyone’s standard. But they weren’t made redundant because of their poor maths and english”.
They were also hired despite their poor maths and English and have been in employment for years, so why the emphasis on maths, English or training schemes to pour coffee or stack shelves? The man is a lunatic.
OBD was right when he called him privateering education guru, except he doesn’t educate, he doesn’t answer any questions and does not learn because he does not listen to criticism.
@AFM A population of illiterates will be undertaking menial, low value jobs. Our infrastructure and society (schools, hospitals, welfare state, pensions, law, policing, etc.) are expensive. So either the unskilled live in what we consider to be poverty or lower cost overseas competition will eliminate many of their jobs.
Twenty five years ago we had many more roles where only basic skills were required. Automation, computerisation and overseas competition have changed our economy. In Germany the culture of developing a highly trained workforce has meant that their industries have remained competitive and cutting edge (plus they had a relatively low cost workforce in the former East Germany). We have not developed in the same way and the them and us of industrial relations encouraged skills stagnation.
I do believe that many of the people who have lost their jobs are in a very difficult position. Some don’t have the skills to secure replacement employment and some are unwilling to accept that they cannot find a new job equivalent to the one they lost.
There are rubbish courses and providers chasing to deliver whatever programme the incumbent government funds. But there is also useful stuff available. I would hate to be in the JCP / Work Programme system. There are opportunities available and I would make it my business to be one of those who finds a way out.
I think Cait Riley blows your argument out of the water Richard, the dwp are forcing educated people to take menial jobs.
The so called Traineeships will fail in exactly the same way that all previous attempts to introduce training programmes over the past 30+ years have failed in that they are traineeships in name only. Any supposed ‘qualifications’ will probably be of the watered down, dumbed down NVQ variety that are no good to anyone. Of course it’s of concern that these young people are leaving full-time education without the basic skills required for life, but this is where education is failing the individual.
However, even if these young people complete the training and get the Mickey Mouse qualification, there will still be no jobs for them, as the jobs they would traditionally have done are either now done by a machine, or by a recent indebted-and-therefore-docile-and-pliable graduate with a Mickey Mouse degree in Tourism Studies or Sports Management from some crap university that was once a good polytechnic.
There is a problem, no doubt about it, but it’s solution lies in what used to be regarded as ‘make work’. This kind of work has, in the past delivered some societal good, and could do so again, and provide the dignity that work brings to those young people. But it must be work that brings no profit to capitalists. There is no end of work that needs to be done in our communities that could be done by young people taken on and given the guidance and support they need, as well as being paid properly for doing that work, and not have to suffer the indignity of having to slave for their benefits. Part of the requirements could be that education relevant to the work chosen by the young person is part of the package, and that the traineeship is structured and tailored to the individual. Effectively an apprenticeship, but rather than an apprenticeship designed for capitalist exploitation it would seek to turn out self-regulating individuals who can think for themselves and about the kind of society they want to live in.
Such a scheme would be costly, but I would argue that young people are more than worth the investment, and money is no real object in the fifth wealthiest country in the world – we just need to tax the rich out of existence!
Did your old lady ever get lifted for dope carrying when she was pregnant with you?
That’s why he is called Dick – short for Richard or perhaps snort for Richard.
The fact is if your company can make millions in profits it should pay all the staff working for the company a wage, weather they are highly or low skilled. If you take on traineeships then they should be guaranteed interview first refusal on any jobs that do appear at your company. But if you use traineeships they should be given jobs and paid a wage they can live on.
If you are not gaining value from them doing work at your company then what value are they getting ?
Doing jobs that actually have no value for their CV ? If they provide value in your workplace they should be paid !
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-funding-for-traineeship-scheme-announced
An extra £20m is being made available to the government’s new Traineeships programme to support even more young people into Apprenticeships and other jobs
Employers such as HSBC, BT, General Motors and Virgin Media are hoping to run youth traineeships under the government’s scheme.
The initiative will offer help in writing a CV, interview practice, work placements of up to five months and training in English and maths.
5 months – Do you think employers are more likely to hire staff and pay them when there are schemes in which they could use 5 trainees to the cost of paying national minimum wage per one paid employee ?
Some companies might not take funding for traineeships, but im sure there are plenty that use funding for the apprenticeship part. There was a time where labour was seen as a cost to a company and not some optional thing where you don’t class a worker as worth having to pay for.
http://careers.virginmedia.com/apprentices/faqs/index.html
“Is the Apprenticeship funded? Yes, for 16-24 year olds, the Apprenticeship is fully funded with support from the Government.”
So you castigate the government when it does not pay for something and you beat them up when it does. Perhaps you just like blaming others?
the government want beating up for not forcing employers to pay for their trainees out of their own pocket and for paying these companies to take on trainees or apprentices – which does rob the young of their worth and dignity.
Why does Lidl (for example) pay graduate trainees £38,000 – £57,500 pa + benefits (http://careers.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/SID-48AF0F19-0F233229/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/4193_7048.htm)? Employers will pay big salaries and won’t ask for subsidies when the people they hire produce value in return for the employer. Of course employers will take a subsidy when it is offered. The reason government feels the need to offer a subsidy for certain groups is because employers know that these aren’t going to be profitable, painless hires.
Notwithstanding this, trainees are not employees and no promises are made to the trainee about future employment at the work experience employer. Trainees are young people with limited qualifications and options who over several months obtain basic vocational skills (numeracy, literacy, customer service, health & safety etc.) and also get a handful of weeks work experience.
By all means imagine it is something different and construct conspiracy theories to support your perception of society’s evils. But Traineeships are as described and not something else.
I have ‘A’ levels, went to university and all of that crap as well as working over many years and they still tried to put me on a training scheme, even though I was more qualified than the middle class juvenile pen pusher behind the counter.
When I refused I got sanctioned by this moronic new labour, noveau riche spawn just out of kindergarten, backed up by our abusive labour mp.
What I am not is some compliant robot that money grabbing corporates want and why they ultimately choose the brainless, can’t think for themselves graduates who want to buy a property that is overflated by 10 times it’s value, a bit like them!
overinflated!
Yeah, Richard, like Lidl is going to want someone “sent from the Jobcentre” on mandatory work activity to manage their shops lol 🙂 What the fuck is your point?
@ Fuck MWA you have made my point perfectly. Although Lidl will pay generously for many young people and without any government subsidy, they are not fighting to hire those “sent from the Jobcentre”. The reason is that person A will swiftly take responsibility and deliver results whereas person B needs far more support and achieves far less. This is why the government subsidises various programmes for those who hitherto have limited vocational skills.
Those who criticise employers for failing to pay a ‘proper wage’ to trainees miss the point that if this was the only option the employer would not be hiring these individuals as many are high-maintenance, unreliable and unskilled. The purpose of programmes like Traineeships is for young people to acquire skills and gain an understanding of what is required if they are to hold down a job AND to then be able to demonstrate these qualities to prospective employers.
Please bear in mind my comments have been about Traineeships, a short programme that provides work experience and training to young people who without an intervention are very likely to become long term unemployed. Mandatory work placements are something very different.
@ Richard, I am not here to make your point for you! Far from it, I asked what the fuck is your point?
So, what the fuck is your point? Waiting……………………..
“Mandatory work placements are something very different.” Yeah, Mandatory work placements are a punishment. Mandatory work placements are fucking brutal. Mandatory work placements are worse than community payback.
Mandatory work placements are PURE FUCKING EVIL!!
What is your point, another one insulting the unemployed. A bloke i knew was a bouncer until he invented some product for cars, now he runs and manages his own company producing this product and is a millionaire.
There have been cases where people who cannot read or write have managed to become millionaires, education is not the be all and end all as those who are in favour of elitism think.
The educated are not always the most suitable for some jobs either, according to the employers who like to reject applicants on other grounds, but stating such people are overqualified.
It is more difficult than yesteryear to achieve success when competing within a global economy and when the bank robbers only lend to those whose parents can offer collateral or dip into a huge pension pot.
@GF ‘What is your point, another one insulting the unemployed.’ – if you can be bothered, read my posts. There is not a single one insulting the unemployed.
Most businesses are pretty simple. They want to employ good people whilst keeping costs down. If they pay too little they can’t attract the people they want. So they have to find the balance where they can hire and keep talented people. Some companies do this well and others do it badly.
My great grandfather was an illiterate immigrant who became a successful East End businessman. My mother came from continental Europe and was affected by poverty and malnutrition in the war years. They survived the hard way. I want my children to do it the easy way and having an education helps.
I don’t blame the unemployed for being unemployed and I certainly don’t trivialise the challenges many people face. I just believe that each person should be pragmatic and take the options that are more likely to deliver the desired result. If a lack of attractive jobs or rival cheap labour are the problems it makes sense to up skill and make oneself more attractive to prospective employers, or emulate the bloke you mention who set up his own company. Of course not everyone has choices. But many do.
As to me being a troll. For over twenty years I have designed products and services used in the recruitment market. I dip into this site because I learn from it.
You didn’t come on here to learn you came on here to dictate.
Dictator Dick who thinks he knows how to secure people invisible jobs, who puts his faith in red dots on a chart and fiddled job statistics.
Tell us Dick dastardly what you have learned because we wait with bated or should that be baited breath?
ps I wasn’t actually replying to you Rechard, I saw that you would jump on fmwa for his reply which did play right into your hands.
Stop talking down to the unemployed that supposedly find job seeking challenging, only because they are not privileged enough to have a daddy that is going to ease the path for them like your father has done for you, you’re such a hypocrite. The capitalist system serves you well enough.
It is not education the unemployed lack, most of them have got your measure, that should make them educated enough in anybody’s eyes.
Yeah guy, that comment didn’t quite come out the wash properly… lol 🙂
That’s alright FMWA as the saying goes” two’s a company and three’s a shroud” that Dick jumped into.
Yes, Dick fell right into my carefully laid trap… lol 🙂
“For over twenty years I have designed products and services used in the recruitment market.”
What products? What services?
Richard, now I know that you come from an industry which is one of the main exploiters of people on government schemes, I can understand your total lack of knowledge about how education and training works, or so often doesn’t.
I don’t understand how anyone with such a high handed and empirical view of the young and unemployed as you appear to have, is capable of learning anything.
Own up Richard, you came here to troll.
I guess I’ll never know then, what ‘Traineeships’ really are, because if they offer no pay I won’t even be there.
Perhaps you just like being a troll Dick? Have you nothing better to do with your time? Go and find some hobbies or something else to occupy your free time instead of trolling the Void looking for arguments all the time.
I see what you did there, you avoided everything I just said, where did I castigate them for not paying what ? Blaming others, yes when most of the companies in my local area choose to use workfare at the expense of hiring people then I just like to blame others then. Pay staff wages non of your excuses.
I used to work for CSV (Community Service Volunteers) who made use of people of all ages on the 13 week risible “Intensive Activity Period” of Labour’s “New Deal”. CSV got paid a fee for having these people for nothing and cherry picked them to ensure that they already had the nous to be useful to the organisation: as part of the New Deal CSV had to provide these “trainees” with a “qualification” and did so by sending them on a six hour first aid course after which everybody attending was given a certificate as a “first aider” although most weren’t even competent enough to prick a blister.
Workfare is shit and helps next to no one.
It is a bloody disgrace.
Richdiculous:
The person lives on the same benefits they were on previously. So they are no worse off. They also get travel expenses.
So why not do away with all wages altogether, and just have everybody, (or at least just the unemployed) going to work 5 or 6 days a week for £56 or £71. Just think of the boost to the UK economy with no one having to be paid any wages.
Richdiculous:
Go into a busy coffee shop and watch how the staff swiftly and efficiently serve large numbers of customers, producing a wide variety of drinks. These jobs require skills and it is inappropriately arrogant to knock it.
I know quite a few young people, and have worked with young people in the past, and all of them could learn how to serve coffee and other drinks fast after a few days of instruction. The bright ones could be running the place in a month.
The idea that the young now need months and months of unpaid ‘training’ to serve customers is richdiculous.
Traineeships are just yet another slave labour scheme.
Richdiculous:
Very many young people leave school without the skills that employers want.
If it wasn’t for these slave labour schemes sucking up jobs, many of those leaving school/college would already have paid experience of coffee serving or paid shelf stacking!
None of these slave labour schemes ever manage to find more than about 20% of the places needed. So hopefully, with half a million places needed for young people, the over 25s might get a bit of a break.
PS. There are no jobs!
Great post AFM and sets Dickie straight on a few things.
IDK, the guy seems to inhabit a parallel universe far far away!!
Yes, dickie dark has yet to see the light raining!
I can hear that Twilight Zone music playing in my head now GF and the spoken introduction. Can hear it as plain as you like. LOL!
He goes on about the A applicant versing the B applicant, he is the D for Dunce applicant, or D for dickhead applicant lol.
I’m telling ya GF Dickie is a comic! gotta give him that. I mean i fold up in laughter every time i read one!!! LOL!
Don’t tell him you find him funny, he comes from entrepreneurial stock and may want to charge a fee for making you laugh, best to laugh at your own jokes they are funnier.
@AFM How much should we be paying students at college or at university? Traineeships are a short duration training course. They are not a job.
It was GEOFF REYNOLDS who wrote ‘explain how you can receive an apprenticeship at COSTA COFFEE or STARBUCKS’. Apprenticeships are paid positions and don’t receive months of unpaid training.
PS. There are jobs: http://www.indeed.co.uk/jobtrends.jsp
richard
3 jobs per 100…that proves the point that there are no jobs….so an explanation for what???
@OBD This indicates the number of advertised jobs per head of the population. So, for example, in Northampton there are 3 jobs per 100 population. Unemployment in Northampton (http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/unemployment-in-northampton-at-lowest-level-in-2013-1-5384707) is 4%. So there are almost as many advertised vacancies as unemployed people.
richard
i’ll ask again therefore, an explanation for what???
ps richard
i’ll also add to my question so that it now has 2 components parts; what type of qualifications do people mostly need to get the the jobs that are available in the current uk jobs market and how do job type descriptions break down in the said market….ie cleaners shelf stackers, road sweepers, engineers etc etc…or are you just making wooly claims without these facts….
obd
The bbc politics show quoted 70% of the jobs that had been CREATED, not needed within society, were managerial, forcing the unemployed to get more and more education and debt for jobs that were not created for anything other than gullible graduates who have the right social networks.
Politicians keep telling their audience we are short of engineers when in fact we are awash with arrogant, pisstaking, social engineers like Dicky boy.
@guy fawkes you are suffering from projection issues: ‘arrogant, pisstaking, social engineers’
The only thing I am suffering from is listening to is thick as a brick Rick.
minus the other is, which was input without any help from me.
@OBD your comment ‘an explanation for what’ is just too cryptic for me. What precisely are you asking for?
If it relates to my previous post I was just observing that contrary to your analysis the gap between unemployment and vacancies in the area you indicated is not that great. Obviously the types of jobs and precise locations will reduce the overlap.
richard
WOW!
“Because the only other explanation is genetics and that certainly doesn’t reflect well on the parents.” explanation for WHAT?? come on explain what you mean…an explanation for what…please also answer my ps as above….
pps richard
i never indicated northampton you assumed it, i gave the uk average of 3 vacancies /100 from your indeed link….300 people applying for 1 job is not uncommon…hence the 2nd part of my question in the ps…
@OBD I think you and some others misunderstood the numbers. In Northampton (the area I thought you had picked) 4 people out of 100 population are unemployed. There are 3 vacancies per 100 population. This suggests a reasonable chance for many people to find a job.
The table had only one entry corresponding to 3 per 100 and that was Northampton. Hence why I assumed this is what you were referring to. We can do the same analysis in any other part of the country.
Loads of people will apply for some jobs and very few for others. A byproduct of UJM requiring people to show they are active jobseekers is that some vacancies receive loads of applications from people with no interest in the role but a wish to keep JCP off their back.
The genetic remark is that a person’s make-up is mostly affected by environment and genes. Which part of this do you disagree with?
also the indeed link was for the MOST populous areas of the uk…so the overall average will be much lower, and likely be a negative figure…
richard
it was you who said claimed genes or upbringing offered an explanation for something not me…i ask you an explanation for what???
There are not 3 jobs per 100 unemployed population though.
Those figures are based on the claimant count, which is less the half the total number of unemployed people, It also shows that the situation is very mixed around the UK.
About the best estimate for the number of job vacancies comes from the Employer Survey carried out by the ONS which currently shows there are about 550,000 current vacancies. There are currently about 2.4 million unemployed people, on top of that about another million plus on sickness benefits who are now expected to work, as well as (guessing) about half a million lone parents with kids under five who are also now expected to look for work.. On top of this there are millions in part time work, zero hours contracts or very low earning self-employment who are also chasing the half a million vacancies.
But even if everyone had a job there would be a large numbers of vacancies simply due to the churn of people changing jobs, retiring etc, It is quite possible that there is no capacity in the system at all for anyone currently out of work unless they displace someone and certainly no capacity at all for the millions of people out of work to all get jobs.
You can have as many vacancies as you like as employees move from one job to another along the employment conveyor belt until they fall off into retirement but not one actual OPENING for someone out of work.
Perpetuating the myth that the unemployed are unemployable Mr Stat.
Johnny It is quite possible that there is no capacity in the system at all for anyone currently out of work unless they displace someone and certainly no capacity at all for the millions of people out of work to all get jobs.
Even those that are in these jobs are the misplaced elite who don’t know their arse from their elbow even with qualifications, they only know how to follow orders. All of these inspectors for public bodies who investigate and exonerate themselves first, just confirm the corrupt interpretation put forward by these self serving public managers of anything from the NHS to housing, even when proved wrong, so why do we have them? These middle class scroungers are the ones that should be out of a job and replaced by independent minded people willing to challenge and get the perpetrators outed on behalf of the victims. No big pension pots for the perpetrators either.
There are people in some areas that have reached middle age and been on nothing but training courses THIS IS A CLASS WAR – A WAR OF ATTRITION and the likes of smug mug tricky dicky needs bringing down a peg or two, time to go back to the drawing board.
I don’t think Stat is perpetuating the myth that the unemployed are unemployable, guy! If you look at the labour market as a game of musical chairs a employee enters on chair one, moves to chair two, then falls into retirement at chair (n+1). So each movement from chair to chair has created a vacancy that has been immediately filled by someone already in employment. i.e. jobs going to those ALREADY in employment. You could have this chain of chairs as long as you like say 5, 500,000, 5,000,000 “vacancies” but there still wouldn’t be one opening for an unemployed person unless they displaced an already employed person who is already moving along the chain. Or to put it more succinctly you could have an infinite amount of job vacancies advertised but not one opening for an unemployed person to enter the game of employment musical chairs (labour market).
How has the vacancy already been filled? employment, in musical chairs format means they take a chair away each time and it always seems to be the most devious that get the available chairs, we need to reverse this process.
we are not playing musical chairs and civil service jobs etc are usually recruited internally if for any reason there does happen to be a vacancy, that is where the rot, cronyism, nepotism and corruption sets in.
I think POS means a long line of chairs (n+1) lol
I don’t much care to what inth he takes his chairs, why is he so convinced that the unemployed can never get a seat.
We need to take away the seats of power away from the ponces that run the country.
How much should we be paying students at college or at university?
Nothing, or ESA, or give them a £27,000 loan, they can pay it back when they’re working for at Poundland for their £56 JSA. I’m not sure what this has to do with the price of cod.
PS. There are jobs:http://www.indeed.
That clearly says Job Postings, and believe it or not Job Postings aren’t actual Vacancies.
I’ve alreadly posted one explaination of the reasons why the number of job postings doesn’t match the number of vacancies on here, I think it’s a good description so I’ll repeat it.
“As an example, the 500k ‘vacancies’ advertised on Unusable Jobmatch could easily be doubled to 1 million ‘vacancies’ advertised, simply by insisting that employers advertise their vacancies for twice as long.
Wouldn’t that be great. But..
Just as not single one of these ‘extra’ 500k now listed would actually exist as a ‘vacancy’, this problem is already happening within the first 500k on a large scale.
On any “one day” there’ll be roughly 25k vacancies, and 5 million unemployed chasing them.”
Some at Ipswich Unemployed Action, and C4News have done lots of research on it.
http://intensiveactivity.wordpress.com/category/universal-jobmatch
AFM – The jobs that are on offer are usually out of town too, making it more expensive and only accessible by those with their own transport.
Capitalism is dead, we need something worthwhile to replace it and OBD
has lots of good ideas.
“The initiative will offer help in writing a CV, interview practice, work placements of up to five months and training in English and maths.” 5 months, so these companies just run a classroom then ? Or are they getting trainees to do all the tasks they would have been paying national minimum wage for people to do ?
That’s the other point, jobcentre don’t send anyone to work at places where there is paid work ! I don’t know about elsewhere but I have never heard of a jobcentre putting someone’s CV forward to a company never mind arranging interview or paid work.
But the jobcentre and there other schemes puts pressure on people to volunteer, to get people into the frame that they can be used and not get paid, because they “learn valuable experience and skills” Which usually does not add anything that will make your CV stand out.
And when that volunteer experience does not magic up a job, they push claimants to take on placements at companies that make enough in profits that they should be paying for staff. Before nu-labour if a company wanted someone to work for them and train them they would hire them and paid them a wage, not ask the jobcentre for unemployed to do work for no wage.
Also don’t start your advertised jobs per person rubbish, you know fine well how many 10,000s of times every job is re-used by various job search sites, for those that exist that is, 100,000 of jobs advertised on UJM are nothing more than scam sites that gain money for the clicks they receive.
I think Richie rich is trying to make money from the replies he gets on here, no matter how badly we think of him.
@Che There are around 900,000 unique (i.e. after duplicates have been removed) job listings in the UK over a 30 day period. Some of them are bogus jobs. Many are real.
That’s about 30k per day, which is very close to my figure of 25k per day.
Problem is how are you going to fit 2.5 to 6 million unemployed in to those 30k vacancies.
Yes it is that bad.
especially when 20k of those jobs are bogus.
How did I guess you were from a recruitment company. You all come across with the attitude of the poor deserve to be poor, because I made it and I was poor.
So what skills are these traineeships teaching that makes those on the scheme so much more impressive to an employer ???
What happens when all those basic unemployed people are sent to your skills courses is they all come out with the same looking CVs which means they end up with no advantage over someone else looking for the same job. In this current climate its either who you know, friends/family get the jobs round here, or your CV is top of the pile out of the 100s that have also applied, because most companies wont look through half the CVs they are sent.
We don’t need to waste millions on silly recruitment companies to patronise those who can’t find work. We need to invest in industry where people are paid a wage and learn skills for a job they will have for life.
Sorry @Che. I don’t have a recruitment company and I most certainly don’t believe that ‘the poor deserve to be poor’.
You are right that who you know is very important for job search. As you can see on page 53 of (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264917/rrep726.pdf) a rather substantial Labour Market study, social networks are more in use in lower skilled jobs than for more senior roles.
Having the same CV as everyone else won’t help. This is why a person has to differentiate himself. It may be the volunteer role at the hospice that showed ability to deal with people in sensitive situations, follow procedures and work as part of a team. Or perhaps the Marathon that showed perseverance and discipline. Or the work placement that involved dealing with time-pressed customers or accurately following written procedures.
According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24433320 there are 8.5 million adults in England and Northern Ireland with the numeracy levels of a 10-year-old. So one thing a Traineeship will provide is a Level 1 qualification in numeracy and literacy. This will help the person manage day to day tasks like calculating change, budgeting and estimating journey times. It will also help a person secure a job.
A Traineeship should provide people who have very few qualifications on their CV with something tangible that they can be proud of. And self-efficacy (the fancy term for self-belief and confidence) is a major predictor of job outcome.
The DWP’s silly insistence on applying for loads of jobs is counter-productive. Find a handful one can do and submit a well-created application for each role that immediately communicates why one has the characteristics the employer is looking for. Quality always wins over quantity.
None of those things will make any difference if, for a bog-standard admin job (for instance) there are now typically around 100plus applications whilst in the not so very dim & distant past, this would have been more like ?20-30odd applicants, with a short-list of about half of those being invited to interview.
NHS jobs: – recruitment was frozen in 2012 (for office/support staff). There are now very few jobs (in this region) advertised per month, & 3/4 years ago there would have been a fairly wide selection. Several departments have been/are being cut- back (staff-wise) or have gone altogether & these ex-employees are now competing with one another (& others – many also redundant from elsewhere) for the few vacancies that appear. None of this is breaking news.
In this city’s 2/3 centre’s of higher education – there are typically just a few (non-academic) vacancies now; there used to be significantly more before the current economic climate was ushered in. It’s not the prospective employees that’ve changed – “it’s the laour market (stupid)”.
Part of this local council are currently only appointing from their existing pool of staff (whether jobs are advertised outside or not) & officially not now meant to use agency staff -‘on hold’ due to cutbacks in the money available to spend overall) – so, on recruitment. Existing staff seem to be extremely busy … circulars regularly arrive reminding them how difficult the authority’s finances are, and that “it’s tough” but all possible is being done to try to avoid having to make anyone (else) redundant …
People are not stupid (with the odd exception) & by & large it’s clear to them that There Are Not Enough Jobs To Go Round. They know this because they used to be able to get a job and now they can’t (!) … the common, shared experience of so many who were working/have usually worked & do have skills & experience. If they have a cv, it will reflect this). This is to leave aside, just for the moment, all of the younger people who do not have so much work experience – which is almost academic, as they are the tip of the proverbial iceberg lettuce.
… “the laBour market” – more evidence that it’s shrinking …
social networks are more in use in lower skilled jobs than for more senior roles.
Come off it!
Go and preach to someone that wants to listen to your clap trap.
If over 8 million have the brain of a 10 year old, you are one of them!
@GF – you really don’t like facts or research do you? The data is in the report. It can be checked. Indeed, if you think about it, it also makes sense. How often does a teaching assistant role get filled by word of mouth at the school. Or a driving job, warehouse role or job on a building site. People tend to mention opportunities to their mates and this results in jobs being obtained.
8 million don’t have the brain of a 10 year old. The data shows that 8.5 million have the numeracy skills normally associated with an 8 year old. Clearly this is a problem for those individuals who cannot do tasks that many others take for granted.
I have no idea why you think it more important to throw silly comments in my direction than comment on a very real problem that affects large numbers of our fellow citizens. Each to their own.
Your statistics are as stupid and irrelevant as you are. Those that do have the numeracy skills of an 8 year old should not be included in your derogatory statistics, because they clearly cannot be cured by bulllying
braggards like you who thinks you are superior to have the brain of a 10 year old.
@gf ‘derogatory statistics’. Yup – ignore unpleasant truths and just make stuff up. Far more satisfying. What is it about Guy Fawkes that appeals? His papist social conscience and interest in the welfare of the peasantry? His ineptitude in pursuing his plot? The fact that four hundred years later we celebrate his failure by burning his effigy?
My effigy is burnt to show I am still very much alive in the eyes of the many – V for Victory.
@gf I don’t want to burst your balloon. But for four hundred years Guy Fawkes has been a symbol of failure and the fact that a Papist plot did not overthrow our elected parliament. He was our hate figure. V for Vendetta is a very recent twist on the story.
If you want to celebrate naive failure, perhaps Don Quixote would be better?
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. 🙂
That won’t include Richard then! 🙂
richard
what is your explanation for these poor numeracy skills?
@obd Poor parenting and poor schooling followed by embarrassment, despair and low confidence. It is certainly not intellectual capability as the vast majority of people are capable of basic numeracy and literacy.
richard
that’s very interesting…”Poor parenting and poor schooling followed by embarrassment, despair and low confidence.” what and you think that self esteem is learnt do you? no! it is recovered, not learnt, so by what cause is self esteem lost?
.
@obd We all start with a certain level of confidence and then life’s many – some small and some big – successes and failures add to it or take away. Some of these are of our own making and some are a consequence of who we are in society and how we feel others see us. And it’s not linear. A series of small events have a disproportionate impact.
And then there is clinical depression. This is an altogether more serious situation. Challenging for the individual and hard to deal with, especially if medication is not wanted.
What do you think?
richard
What do you think? more like what do i know…
it IS a rationalization…the BIG question is how our self esteem is eroded, how and by what cause do we let others IN, to erode our self esteem….how do you measure success and failures, and what is of your own making?
why is it important to be ranked, and why do you care what others think of you? what kind of events and impacts are you describing?
…who judges you? right or wrong, good or evil, got it right, got it wrong…who sets the conditionalities and sanctions, in your life? what do you judge your self by, money/power/salable assets/ how much disposable income you have, how much you can spend on a meal?
obd
You played right into his prejudiced, poxy, perceptions from his imaginary lofty position.
g fawkes
did i? we’ll see!
that told him obd 🙂
g fawkes
i attended 3 colleges, i expect many went to colleges for training, including yourself, to better our job opportunities/life skills…1 was a paid apprenticeship, i got a grant for the other 2…i chose these courses and they were seen by all as giving better job opps, there were trainee cooks, chefs, care workers, etc etc…all were paid a grant…and had a recognized certificate at the conclusion of the courses..numeracy skills were gained as and when required, as a necessary part of the qualification, the whole idea was to gain real employment, as said, improve jobs opps, and did have a better than fair chance of gaining decent employment…the point is, at that time there were seen to be true job opportunities to be had, and choice about what one did to improve skills…that choice simply no longer exists, for many…people now know for many that the chances of a job is rare…traineeship’s no longer have the value that they used to have, and tantalis gaming has taken over…ie the apprenticeship was/is a paid WE traineeship…the state has now taken over the admin of the majority of WE “traineeship’s”, it is harsh, conditional, sanctionable, and with the, we know what is best for you, regime. that for the majority destroys self-esteem, the chances of gaining employment from these schemes are practically nil, as there are no jobs….all that pointless, hard work, effort, that the state and claimant already knows is for nothing, is demoralizing, people who claim that this is not the case, really get up my nose…coz they trigger one to re-experience this and to re-explain this….i feel anguish, for myself, others in the intense frustration, that we are now in this surreal position…i think of solutions to move on from where we now are, but they are pipe dreams in light of the displayed attitudes, of i’m alright jack from others, who try to market a position, to profit from our misery, and who claim this that or the other is the cause, when there is only one cause, no fcuking jobs…that we’re all in the same boat, is simply not true…2 classes those who are forced to beg for work and those who don’t have to…
obd
It’s about time there was a change around and the have nots become the haves.
Teaching assistants roles are not “filled by word of mouth” – you have to apply for them and be accepted at interview (?!). They are very specialist roles that not just anyone would be able to do & schools/parents wouldn’t want “someone who [just] knew someone at the school” in post.
@ shirleynott https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/teachingassistant.aspx
Thanks but not relevant to whether or not people can get those roles simply by word of mouth (which i sincerely hope they can’t & am fairly sure they don’t).
@ shirleynott A sensible local mum known to the community is often the preferred choice and this is one of those roles that very often is filled through informal channels. Not always. But often.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents/teaching_assistant/ has some good advice.
“A sensible local mum known to the community is often the preferred choice”. That’s me out already then! So even if I perfect my CV and my interview techniques, I probably still wouldn’t be offered that job! Whatever happened to equal opportunity recruitment practices? And guess what Richard? Michael Gove wants to get rid of teaching assistants altogether to save money and make teachers even more miserable than he has so far.
By sensible, Richard means somebody that is up their own arse, with the ideals of the middle class morons, who preach and teach in the same old fashion and never reach kids who need their imaginative talents brought out of them, the real entrepreneurs of the future, the ones who really do the inventing and creating, which is promptly stolen or bought into by some investor who wants more of a share than their investments.
The Simon Cowells or the major Parkers who would be nowhere without the talent they exploit..
You are making it up as you go along.
TA’s need to be much more than just “sensible” and being a mum isn’t essential or relevant to the role either. A friend who has recently secured a role as a TA has one-two years teaching practice previously gained, (as part of a teaching qualification) & had to apply and be interviewed before getting the job on merit. The careers service snapshot of the job says a very similar thing to most of their other overviews of potential careers – in that it is “sometimes” or “can be” possible to break into a new field of work by dint of having some relevant experience and your face fitting … but that’s not the same as what you said. I really hope you don’t work for the careers service.
You might be confusing a teaching assistant with a volunteer helper in a primary (or even a secondary) school is all i can think, but no harm done.
Shirley
What exactly do teaching assistants do and why are they necessary.
We already have qualified teachers and teachers helpers. Soon there will be more chiefs than indians, unlike when I was at school when there was one teacher to about 40 kids and the quality of teaching was far superior to anything you have now, despite all of the technology.
Pretty soon parents will be having their children taught at home via computers, where will this middle class profession be then?
guy,
It’s not exactly an educated guess but from what I have seen, In primary schools they are an extra pair of hands/eyes/ears etc., but they are not in every class. I think one teacher to the fairly high numbers of children (up to 30?) is a lot, so an extra person to help them do all that they do is a good idea. I think people aspiring to become a teacher work as TAs as well as others who perhaps just enjoy & are good at the job for what it entails. It looks like a great job – they get to go on school trips etc. & perhaps can be another adult who the kids feel they can confide in/get support from who’s a bit less serious all the time than their ‘real’ teacher.
In secondary schools, I don’t know whether it’s the same or different, but in at least some inner city primaries there are a good many ‘issues’ to contend with (in & among the everyday educational challenges/complexities) and one teacher alone can’t do as much however good they are, as they can with additional support.
(?) The TAs are the “teachers’ helpers” – unless they sometimes have a student teacher who is also there to learn as far as I know (which isn’t all that far).
Shirley
Whenever it comes to jobs paid for by the state, they ask for those with qualifications as you have stated these TA have to have and will want a salary to match no doubt.
Yet those that are slaving away in the working class jobs in the private sector are told to up their production or face the sack.
So why are you promoting more jobs for the taxpayer to pay via the state, when as I have already stated when I was at school we had 38kids in my class and I still passed the 11 plus.
More eyes and ears are to listen to what exactly?
ps. guy, most of the barriers to teachers allowed to teach as well as they could possibly do are the zillions of hoops they have to jump through to satisfy ofsted/govested. That they’re maybe more dependant on/need all the assistance they can get is becoming common knowledge – due to having to constantly verify and ‘evidence’ they’re meeting targets, to within an inch of their lives.
I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
In the halcyon days of 70s-style education, in my memories, there were some great teachers & teaching (as now). My memories of school are not black & white though – & quite grey, post-11. There was a real mix of teaching styles on offer at my primary school … with about 60percent being great: guitar lessons with a teacher who sang Bob Dylan & Peter, Paul & Mary songs; being listened to read by an occasional teaching assistant-type student teacher from Greece; not being tested endlessly pre-SATS & only the one exam – ever. I wouldn’t wish at least two of the teachers from that (‘good’) school on any 7/8 year olds of today, though (ear-pulling/hitting with rulers) – that was the teachers – no-one spoke about it of course/it was accepted by parents as ‘normal’ and so it went on.
Ditto secondary school, where although one English teacher taught us about Janis Joplin & poetry – often in the same lesson, he was far from typical, alongside a far bigger number of real ‘old-school’ (bullying) type-teachers; several of them could also bore for England – & did. There was a religious zealot teaching RE, with a literal interpretation of Genesis (the book) & more than one sadistic PE teacher. Boys who misbehaved were caned. Girls who misbehaved were taken straight home until they sobered up(!)
guy,
I passed the 11+ test too (not something I get to say very often these days) but it was probably as much to do with a love of books/reading being in place by the age of 5 as it was with whatever they did teach at school (mainly I remember drilling xtables) that didn’t come from school … & – as obd regularly states – from having a loving/caring and secure family/clean clothes – as taken for granted and never questioned, enough to eat on a regular basis/being included in conversations and not talked down to – knowing I was valued & had value etc. Having said that, one of my siblings did the same; the other didn’t. Two of us went to university, one didn’t – however that one is quite ok and is in relatively secure & quite well-paid work. So I am with you that (formal) education isn’t everything. Reading (& so comprehension) was relatively easy for me but I developed a fear of maths aged around 12 due to a series of frightening maths teachers.
When I go into schools today (reading assistant volunteer roles and due to my own family commitments) I see lots of positive, encouraging and varied teaching – & I am not too bothered whether the person ‘delivering’ this holds a PGCE – if that’s still what they are called, or is an ‘ordinary person’ with some teaching experience who has been considered by the headteacher to be good enough to teach mine (and anyone else’s children). That’s outside my remit. I’m not “promoting” them and if teaching is a “middle class job” I am still happy for it to continue so not sure how to answer that one,
I only know one teaching assistant personally – this person is training to be a teacher but has broken off mid-way in to look after her own children – which she is very good at – but that’s separate to the teaching (she’s not even that “sensible” outside work).
As not an historian, as far as I know there have always been ‘social issues’ (poverty)/haves and have nots. Some of my best friends … etc.
What the teaching assistants & teachers are looking out for, in between their teaching remit, is the wellbeing of the children in their class as they have a duty of care. Are they being bullied? Are they arriving (sadly) without having had any breakfast & are they able to stay awake/do they seem to have the weight of the world on their shoulders … hopefully this isn’t mostly what they do see and they are able to concentrate on helping the lesson to run smoothly – they quite often take reluctant readers, for example, or slower writers, and give them additional individual attention to help them not fall too far behind. They don’t need me to defend them.
Shirley
I don’t buy into this extra help for teachers lark, paid for by the tax payer. If ofsted are a problem, then like the sick, they should be fighting to get rid of ofsted. yet another tier of governance such as atos.
I am not in favour of snoops in schools either, children with educational problems should be given free extra tuition at home, not humiliated by having the teachers helper separate them out from the rest of the class.
The rich pay for extra home tuition for their kids.
Personally I like to read slowly and ponder on what I have read, question its validity etc., why should the emphasis be on rushing about.
For someone who says they are no expert on the subject you seem to know a heck of a lot about these vacancies, are you part of the system when you visit the schools as you say?
All ofsted are doing is putting more emphasis and pressure on kids who like to do things in their own time and in their own way, not perform in some robotic fashion that suits the middleclass corporate ideal.
As for Richard I think the only book he has ever read is “Don Quixote”, the last time we argued he was tilting at windmills.
Good grief Charlie Brown,
in no particular order & to try to address your comment/questions guy,
As you probably already know I ended up becoming (long-term) unemplyoyed around 2 years ago & have just recently struck lucky & managed to get some short-term insecure work – but I’m still here so hopefully that tells you which side I’m on politically/morally.
If having a school-aged child makes me “part of the [schools] system” then yes, I suppose I am – by default. I could never work in a school but did go into secondary schools (& maybe didn’t phrase that very well) for a time – a few years back (just as far as the library) as a volunteer reading assistant, hearing year 7 children (11year-olds) read. Have done this in the past with younger children & it was to “get myself out of the house” in some ways ….
…. the children singled out for that were far enough below their reading age to have been picked up on as struggling/going to struggle in other lessons due to literacy being a fairly fundamental part of not switching off in school/(sometimes) leading to becoming the ‘class clown’ & (sometimes) leading to ‘lessened job outcomes’ (sorry about the language I am in a rush). There’s a high level of literacy in prisons – not for one second to suggest that all people find reading difficult become disruptive children at school/go on to commit crime but it’s like the ‘not all who have been abused themselves go on to commit abuse/but many of those who do commit abuse were themselves abused’. Sorry this is a bit long-winded. My main reason for hoping that people get past their difficulties with reading is so that they can enjoy reading for pleasure – not really so they can excel or even keep up at school – but that’s no bad thing if they do happen to. If there had been someone to help me with maths one-to-one around that age it would have made quite a big difference I think but there’s always the worry about being ‘singled out’ being a negative.
Earlier the children I was talking about weren’t those with “educational difficulties” – it’s just a normal part of teaching (from the bit I’ve been personally involved with) for a teacher who has the time (or has an assistant who can do it) to stay a bit longer with someone who’s getting a bit left behind etc. so they don’t end up feeling they’re rubbish /to help them to keep up – it’s hopefully done tactfully & spun as a positive to the child … talking about youngish children of around 9/10.
What else?! Teachers & other school (admin etc,) staff do want Ofsted & Gove out – of course they do & the school I have community links with were on strike this time round & the last time – which prompted a whole conversation about the merits/pain involved in going on strike generally & several discussions etc. on the miners strike in this household – they had my full support (the teachers & of course the miners).
Completely agree with your comments about the lovely ricardo – who clearly reads ‘business for dummies’ & other good books at night & completely agree that young adults & children should be allowed to learn/grow/develop at their own pace etc. – which is probably why I could never be a teacher. michael morpurgo talks about this – he used to be one before writing his various books – he tried to teach with verve & not as an automaton & says he couldn’t do the job in the way it’s being expected to be done today.
*sorry a high level of illiteracy in prisons … freudian slap.
**& guy please disregard “job outcomes” I really just meant outcomes/opportunities for life – not a reading fascist; it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea & that’s fine. I will never completely get complex percentages & other vital maths skills – just try to muddle through & hope for the best/avoiding anything with numbers in ..
Thanks for that Shirley,
I am pleased someone agrees with my description of Ricardo (great name, I missed that one, too busy thinking of dicky bird or bow) anyway back to schooling, I would have thought with so many children in day care, and so much emphasis put on education in pre- schooling, I would have thought that the teachers have an easier time, not to mention the fact that those with home tutors also take the pressure off the teachers leaving them freer to teach those less privileged, yet still gifted enough once their thirst for knowledge is presented to them in a less formal package.
I always thought Zoe Balls father had a wonderful way of teaching children on tv and there are so many educational programmes too that help children along, something we did not have when I went to school.
I have helped my grandchildren with the wonderful Gervase phinn Books as I did with my own children, and made teaching at home fun.
So overall I think the teachers must have a smoother path when it comes to teaching than yesteryear, therefore their main problem is to stand up to their own bullies OFSTED.
Thanks for your reply too & for sifting through long/waffly comments. I’m sure your children & grandchildren are always (strongly!) encouraged to question and debate … I’ll have a look @ Gervase Phinn – i only know the name. The person that I know who’s working at a local primary school taught her children to read before they reached school-age & it’s not something I could manage or, to be honest, attempted to do – I wish they could have a few more years ‘just’ playing before having to go off to ‘formal’ education …
The issue(s) now in schools seems to be as in most other areas of importance – vast inequalities & increasing pressures from on high, with teachers being asked to work like quality controllers.
There are so many ‘struggling’ – for want of a better word – households – I am in one of the bigger cities, here, that at least some schools are regularly trying to manage the repercussions/fallout. They routinely do much more than ‘just’ teaching – not as in they try to look for problems/want to criticise or condemn parents, but they’re faced with more than just an occasional child with various degrees of complex needs – various – & trying to meet the needs of those children (who will be very demanding of their time – or, in the jargon ‘extremely challenging’) & still need to teach the rest of the class – all at varying stages/levels of ability to concentrate/some having come in from ‘stable/calm’ households & others from more stress/anxiety-filled ones; some without English as a first language etc. Given all that’s currently happening to anyone and everyone (unless they are in the ‘lucky’ group, outside of austerity Britain – in a privileged/fortunate bubble) – some schools have set up breakfast clubs etc, – not as a convenience for working parents, but as a necessity for children who are otherwise not always able to have breakfast. It sounds emotive and almost ludicrous but the ‘S’ word alone accounts for a lot of this.
It’s not possible to underestimate the impact of impoverishing parents (which is what we know has become ‘usual’ down at JCP-) on the children living in that household. This is one of the largest local authorities – I’ve only recently found this out in real terms – & has high incidences of ‘social issues’ – including many households/families living below the breadline, whether exacerbated by pre-existing factors, or not …
Shirley I just want to correct something I said regarding Gervase Phinn which I read to my grandchildren as he is a relatively new author to me, I read books from other authors to my chidren.
The North East has been one of the most deprived areas for the past 30years for the working class, the middle class seem to come up smelling of roses in all areas though and prefer to preach about social problems, which quite frankly I think they have helped create, via the voting system and all of the inequality it brings.
By all means take what I write and twist. But all I was stating is that some roles tend to be filled on a local basis largely through word of mouth. A local school employs some teaching assistants. A mother at the school fancies the role. She completes the training and/or volunteers. A paid vacancy comes up and she secures it.
This is not how every teaching assistant vacancy is filled. It is simply how many are filled and is an example of the local word of mouth recruitment market in action.
@gf may think that ‘sensible’ means ‘somebody that is up their own arse, with the ideals of the middle class morons, who preach and teach in the same old fashion and never reach kids who need their imaginative talents brought out of them, the real entrepreneurs of the future, the ones who really do the inventing and creating, which is promptly stolen or bought into by some investor who wants more of a share than their investments.
The Simon Cowells or the major Parkers who would be nowhere without the talent they exploit’ – I was thinking that it meant ‘Karen, a local mum who we have known for a while who has her head screwed on and would fit in really well here’.
Shirley did not twist anything you said in the slightest. If the school/local authority operates an equal opportunities recruitment policy, then ‘Karen’ would still have to apply for and undergo a competitive interview for any paid vacancy. Ok. so maybe you’re not a troll in the sense that you’re just here to try and wind people up. But you are clearly here with a hidden agenda Richard. I take it from your lack of response about capitalism that you’re an owner of the means of production and that capitalism has served you very well? Maybe you’re a ‘welfare to work’ provider who profits from unemployed people.
Hi @Suzy You are over-analysing my point. I was simply observing that some jobs are obtained through local connections and I gave a few examples. It also tends to be warmer in the summer and wetter in the winter. None of these are contentious statements but of course you can find the year where the seasons were unusual. Or if you just want to pick holes in anything I write, the hot day in December and the wet day in July. If the school has a standard recruitment procedure it will probably advertise the vacancy and run a formal selection process. And in some instances and for some schools this type of recruitment will be done on a more informal basis.
Yes Suzy – I am a capitalist. I own a company and for several years have been paid less than very single employee. And if all goes well at some point I may make far more than them. It is Marxian surplus value. However, I am very aware that unless the employment relationship works for them I run the risk of my colleagues leaving. They have sought after skills and would have no problem finding other jobs. It is a fair exchange.
I profit through delivering a sought-after service to a wide range of customers. If I fail to deliver then I lose my customers and my business. This competition works for just about everyone.
Perhaps capitalism is a flawed system. The problem, just like democracy, is that there are no obvious alternatives with a track record of success.
“Maybe you’re a ‘welfare to work’ provider who profits from unemployed people.” Yes, indeed, Richard keeps alluding to the “hidden job market”, “word of mouth” and “looking in shop windows”.
Actually, guy fawkes, teaching assistants do an incredibly difficult job and their pay is appalling! Your views on public sector, or “tax-payer funded” jobs sound very much like those of a tory or ukip supporter.
And what about all those kids that failed their 11-plus back then?
Suzy,
It was, relatively speaking, pot-luck.
We didn’t know what we were taking – there was no ‘run-up’/practice or preamble, or not that I remember. There was just the one type of question really – although some questions were more ‘word-based’ – which worked well for some, with some being similar only number-based. It was all about being able to spot patterns and it was a memory/comprehension test (?) i think (a sort of IQ test – but only one sort). Then the rest of your life was supposedly going to be mapped out by either going to a ‘fail’ or a ‘pass’ school. I am so glad they have done away with this where I live – although the SATS tests are almost as bad only in a completely different way. They instil fear in anyone who doesn’t think of themselves as being the ‘smartest’ kid in the class – whether or not that child is gifted in any other areas, or funny … good at sports … or just ‘average’ it’s so wrong.
Suzy I am sorry if I sound like a tory or Ukip but as I belong to no particular party and therefore choose the policies I wish to follow, which happens to be a pick and mix from lots of parties.
I happen to think we need to be creating jobs that will put money into the economy, that produces something, not jobs that are taking money out of the economy or from the education pot in general, for what is nothing more than job creation within the school system, which perpetuates the stigmatizing of children being given extra help.
If you really want them to be helped, giive them home tuition after school as the middle class do for their children in order that they are one up on the poorer kids, and not in public libraries either which I have seen these tutors do to kids.
correction “as I belong to no particular party I therefor choose the policies I wish to follow…….”
Richard’s talking out of his arse.
Of course there is nothing contentious about saying that ‘people find employment in different ways’. However, reading between the lines of your posts, Richard, your underlying message seems to be, “getting a job is really not such a complicated matter, stop complaining and get on with it!”. Again, this stems from your inability or refusal to look at the bigger picture.
“Perhaps capitalism is a flawed system. The problem, just like democracy, is that there are no obvious alternatives with a track record of success”.
An egalitarian, classless society in which there is collective ownership of the major means of production, involving a planned economy, in which the aim of production is to satisfy human needs rather than generating profits, has not yet been created anywhere.
@ Suzy – You read too much between the lines. I try to write what I mean. I accept there are all sorts of challenges that affect people and the last five years especially have been very tough. I 100% believe and am thankful we have a welfare state. I equally fear that a safety net has – for some – become an entitlement and lifestyle choice. I am not pointing the finger at specific people as I do not have the facts or expertise to make individual judgements. I simply observe that I am very happy paying taxes that go to people in genuine need and I am not happy paying taxes to people who can’t be arsed. I believe in the proverb Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Suzy – I would love to live in an egalitarian, classless society. I don’t believe that such a place exists on any large scale and I don’t believe human nature lends itself to such a society. I am sure a lot of people would like this if only they believed it were realistic. I have only heard people describe the end result and its utopian ideals. I have never heard anything that seems like a practical plan to get there and make it work. Have you and can you provide details?
richard
you are a behaviorist…often you start with or include put downs, of others, to wind up and trigger people.. ie “@ Suzy – You read too much between the lines. I try to write what I mean.” that statement IS a put down, or you over analyse, or fail to comprehend what i am saying etc etc, over think, think too much, which is behaviorist goad speak to claim other has faulty mind, whilst simultaneously claiming the solution, if only you did that or the other, then it’s bad luck should have tried harder better luck next time….never once finding fault with self…..you do it all the time, and constantly, often subtlety contradict yourself, so as YOU don’t see this…benefits are a lawful ENTITLEMENT…the majority of unemployed desperately want work, and face a daily barrage of abuse for not creating it…the fraud rate is 0.7% more is lost in admin errors £16bn/yr goes unclaimed, the jsa bill is £2.9/yr…our economy is stagnant…there is no lifestyle choice, but a dilemma of excepting one’s situation, and at the same time a desperate need to improve it, this creates a dreadful cognitive dissonance tension, a self control of rage and a simultaneous submissiveness from which the unscrupulous can and do feed on from …
p s richard
£2.9bn/yr jsa bill….can’t have people using their minds and seeing truth can we, mustn’t over think now must we!
@OBD
So Suzy can write: “reading between the lines of your posts…’ and I should not reply ‘Suzy – You read too much between the lines’?
Metaphorically: Look in the mirror!
richard
an absolutely expected reply from your self…and this exactly what a behaviorist does, is to try to turn the tables on others to elicit a strong reaction from others…..your very 1st post on this blog, encouraged a very strong reaction from others and has done ever since, you set the trend of replies to your posts with your antagonism of other posters and the nature of their responsive comments to you….it is the fundamentals of the goading techniques that you use to gain your power…people are entitled to read between the lines, and to consider what is implied in any post…by and large many people get my posts, as i get the posts of others…your posts are seen for what they are and responded to accordingly…if people say “reading between the lines”, it is because they see foggy expression and a hidden agenda…therefore it is for you to be clear and/or clarify…not attack someone for seeing it…
p s richard
i also note that you neatly sidestepped the details of my other responses, to your posts directly above…ie lifestyle choice and entitlement etc…
Richard, I think that you are a reductive behaviourist who has read too many glossy manifestos, press releases and swallowed whole the entire output of the Daily Mail since 1979
I would also add that you reveal how massively ignorant you are about matters such as literacy & numeracy
Upthread you typed “A population of illiterates” you were talking about the type of people who might do menial work. A distasteful statement in itself, but you reveal so much about yourself by making it.
Richard, there is no such thing as a “population of illiterates” no such grouping of any size at all in the UK
Total functional illiteracy is one of the rarest development/educational anomalies in our culture
You tout the need for everyone on benefits to have literacy and numeracy assessments then be sent off to “training” in these subjects. Just who is going to carry out these assessments? Your beloved Work Programme Advisers? I have seen many, many accounts of just what counts as “basic skills assessment” where the assessment consisted of a person being handed a badly photocopied “wordsearch” puzzle (or something similarly inappropriate) from a Pound Shop, the “puzzle” would have had the original answers Tippexed out. The puzzle is completed. The puzzle is put away in a file and forgotten
Many people living at all levels in our culture may have some literacy skills shortfall, same for numeracy. But, and it’s a huge but… unless consent, respect, tact and humaneness, along with real skill are applied in assessing an individuals needs, you may as well have not bothered to assess their needs
Every single time some dull Daily Mail reading fuckwit, brings up the subject of literacy and numeracy skill shortfall, and demands for the matter to be tackled, all they can ever offer is to make literacy and numeracy assessments and “training” compulsory
So, with your massive lack of education in the subject in hand Richard, all you are doing is making sure that no one gets their needs met and many will be put off ever gaining help to improve their skills
It’s people with attitudes similar to yours Richard, who are responsible for people not being able to improve their literacy and numeracy, because you create and perpetuate so much stigma around such a sensitive issue that people are frightened off and avoid any situation where they risk being humiliated.
People end up with literacy and numeracy skill shortfall for very complex reasons, you appear to believe that it is only the fault of the parents. Every time a person, be it adult or child is stigmatised because they cannot yet do something it takes them further and further away from ever being able to master that skill or even attempt it. It is not a fault or a deficit of the individual, it is the fault and deficit of people like yourself Richard, you castigate people for poor skills and at the same time ensure they are never confident to address their skills shortfall.
This is your literacy & numeracy revolution Richard.
I’d advise sitting down in a comfy chair now Richard, this next statement might cause you to have a brain bleed – literacy and numeracy are not something you can be trained in. They are not trainable subjects. Training is about change of behaviour, nothing else. Education is about increasing knowledge, developing attitudes, the development of the individual.
I’m not going to go into detail on this, I will let you google some basic learning theory for yourself. It might help you look like less of a ignoramus.
Lucy, thanks for that comment; it’s so perfect I might have to photocopy/re-read it several times & frame it …
… (a “reductive behaviourist” – to put it mildly).
Cheers Shirley, so many people have engaged with Richard and not once has he been able to answer the challenges. His attack on TAs was really low. I think he’s run away now.
Congrats on getting some work Shirley. I know you said it’s insecure, but I hope it works out well for you (and your nice owl) xx
lucy
yes, the key tool of behaviorism is trying to make people feel bad about themselves….to belittle the “clients” pov…so that the behaviorist takes control of one’s pov…very nasty stuff…
Thanks Lucy (so for now at least I’m living in x2 parrallel universe/s). I am sure there are really high numbers of those with some work (& perhaps when they usually or always have had) who’ve always been relatively clueless/unaware about how the ‘other half lives’ & unless or until something affects them directly – eg. pension changes … they don’t feel the need & perhaps don’t have the energy to want to know. So life life ticks on until someone falls down in front of them, from exhaustion/lack of food (& they don’t ‘see’ the people they walk round at bus stops/on the pavements).
In/out of work could all change again at any time – is how things are for so many. (Some) health service workers and teachers are notable exceptions to the ‘not wantin to know’ – & there’ll be many others – it’s not good to generalise … Theoretically as well, the people who are not signing on should have more energy to be involved in the great fightback & this is what I am hoping. The experience of jcp- today is going to leave a lasting impact on so many people – unemployment itself should be the difficult thing to address, not abuse of the system/their ‘powers’ by (un)civil servants in the form of the government bully-boys/girls.
I’d be extremely wary of believing any educational statistic taken from the mainstream sector – various governments have been trying to present it as a failure for a very long time – it serves their ideological motives to play down levels of literacy.
If mainstream education was more individually focussed, and less concerned with complying to the agenda of politicians/employers and more concerned with producing self-regulating individuals then it’s my guess this problem would not exist. Young people leaving full-time education with a lack of basic literacy is a product of alienation.
Employers are not interested if you run marathons in your spare time or that you achieved level 1 education traineeship.
They want people with the skills of doing the job and proven work history.
@Che
Employers aren’t interested in people with discipline and tenacity?
Employers aren’t interested in people who are numerate and literate?
Employers aren’t interested in people who can look after customers?
Really?
But is is how it is DEMONSTRATED Richard. If candidate A demonstrates tenacity by holding down a sales job for one year and candidate B demonstrates tenacity by running marathons who is Virgin Media going to employ? Who who you employ Richard? Be honest! Yeah, the marathon runner 😉 Sure, lol 🙂
If the marathon runner earned more in sponsorship money he would probably employ him for his earning ability and social networking, being media savvy and the number cruncher that he is.
@ Richard
Employees aren’t interested in Employers who don’t pay wages.
@LANDLESS PEASANT – Good point. But it is never so simple.
The current government’s philosophy is that if a person is being paid by the State then that individual has obligations back to the State. If the individual does not want those obligations then don’t take the benefits.
I heard someone on the radio express it another way. Imagine hitting hard times and taking money off a mate to help one through. What would your mate say if you said: “I have been offered a job but it is a crap job and only offers a few pounds more than you are giving me. So I won’t take the job and will just stick to taking your money.”?
The debate boils down to whether benefits are an entitlement (like free healthcare and schooling) or a safety net only to be used when there is no other option.
However, Traineeships and work experience are intended as training opportunities that benefit the individual and improve life options (just like school / college). They are not designed as punitive ‘get a job or else’ programmes. This is why I don’t think even those who disagree with mandatory placements should object to them.
The current government’s philosophy is that if a person is being paid by the State then that individual has obligations back to the State. If the individual does not want those obligations then don’t take the benefits.
For most of the employed/unemployed, it’s a bit like being forced to save for a rainy day, and when the rainy day comes the bank says no you have to work for it (again), even though that’s the very problem, there is no work to be done.
When we’ve got 1,500 people queing outside an Aldi for 40 part-time jobs, what tougher obligations and conditions can we put on the 1,460 because they didn’t get the jobs.
Improve their literacy/maths?
Force them to ‘work for their benefit’.?
Queue harder?
How many £bns shall we waste trying to find out which of 100 in the queue really don’t want to work, as if makes a scrap of difference even if half of them didn’t want to work.
I heard someone on the radio express it another way. Imagine hitting hard times and taking money off a mate to help one through. What would your mate say if you said: “I have been offered a job but it is a crap job and only offers a few pounds more than you are giving me. So I won’t take the job and will just stick to taking your money.”?
This is where he finds that his mates new job is at his place, and now they have the extra worker he can’t get any overtime and so is worse off.
I actually know someone that this (near enough) happend to. Always complaining that there were unemployed people in the pub when he finished work. I did tell him it was none of his business.
Well, his company got a contract or training grant or something, and took 10 of them on, he probably gave them the application forms as he offered me one. With the all extra workers the company now no longer had to pay time-and-half for Saturdays, and double-time for Sundays. He said he was now £40 pw worse off most weeks!
The debate boils down to whether benefits are an entitlement (like free healthcare and schooling) or a safety net only to be used when there is no other option.
Benefits are 100% an entitlement, there’s no point in paying NI or tax otherwise.
At best their is nowhere enough jobs, so there is no other option.
The current government’s philosophy is that if a person is being paid by the State then that individual has obligations back to the State. If the individual does not want those obligations then don’t take the benefits.
How many civil servants including government and work providers are being paid by the state, are not fulfilling their obligations, so should also not be given benefits or salaries.
Che
Dicky dumb dumb has come on here to try and sell what he thinks are his own skills, dictating to us, give him the elbow.
@Guy Fawkes Pray tell: where have I tried to sell anything? If that is my intention I have probably come to the wrong place! Have I dictated anything other than to express an opinion and link to a few published statistics?
So what you really want is Johnny Void posting about some aspect of society and forty others can chime in expressing grateful and voluble agreement.
And in 5 years everything will be the same.
In 5 years whatever government is in everything will be worse, because nobody is buying the fatuous, job creation you and your ilk are offering, unless they are brainwashed robots.
So when virgin media recruit you think they pick someone who has level 1 traineeship scheme and does charity/marathons, or do they pick someone who was working for a year at a call centre and has a track record of working around sales ? Good luck with that.
@Che Call centre and sales are bound to go down well and indeed a Traineeship role may have provided just that. On top of which there will be the other qualities.
It is just common sense. Make the most of what one has and can offer. Even that Duke of Edinburgh Bronze says something about a person and why s/he stands out compared to the individuals with nothing more than a name and address on their CV.
………..AS PHILIP GLENISTER WOULD SAY RICHARD;
“OVERBEARING AROMAS OF PRETENTIOUS RUBBISH”
che – don’t fall for the shit.
This is scandalous this article about PIP!
BTW everyone ignore tricky dickie and don’t feed the troll anymore he’s boring.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/11/iain-duncan-smith-pip-payments-punish-poor-ill-dying
“Americans construct tiny houses – and new lives”
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26964724
I’ve been reading about tiny houses today and I would like to build a little mobile one, to trundle onto my bit of woodland. The bit of woodland that I do not have.
I would like to see the Tiny House movement flourish here. The simplicity of such living is very appealing.
Don’t we already have tiny houses on wheels? Aren’t they called…caravans? 😀
We do have caravans that are made out of some sort of beige flimsy, but tiny houses are made of wood and bricks and things that bad wolves won’t blow down 🙂
So… Do we all (well some of us) understand the problem now?
Asda to create ‘up to 12,000 jobs’ over five years
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26918527
Despite some MPs jumping up and down, as mine, and Richard’s!!! figures show this 12,000 jobs over 5 years is so small it’s unmeasurable, by the ONS or anyone else. It’s a half of a days ‘worth’ of jobs – spread over 5 YEARS. And that’s before you take into account the quality of the ‘jobs’ and the fact that many smaller shops will be lost.
As for good news in reducing unemployment it’s totally unmeasurable.
A group of Canadian researchers has given the imprimatur of social-science recognition to a fact that many of us who spend time in internet comment forums have suspected: there’s a strong correlation between online trolling and sadism.
“Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun … and the Internet is their playground!” write Erin Buckels, Paul Trapnell, and Delroy Paulhus of the Universities of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and British Columbia, respectively, in a paper to be published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/12/study_shoes_that_online_comment_trolls_are_sadists/
https://www.academia.edu/6016545/Trolls_just_want_to_have_fun
Richard is here to taunt and belittle the unemployed and their families to make himself feel special and for his own amusement and pleasure.
r34
exactly!
R34 ~ we can all move on now.
R34 “Richard is here to taunt and belittle the unemployed and their families to make himself feel special and for his own amusement and pleasure.”
Most definitely true. Seems to have those tendencies all down to T.
What he doesn’t seem to realize is he’s lost all his own humanity by indulging in the game he indulges in.
raining
the “goad” is that the working classes have always sought to strive and move on out of poverty and poverty has always been blamed on us and now there is nowhere for us to strive too…as industry has been all but wiped out (sold off, shut down etc), the system that educated us to know our place, and to work for the system…ie the schools system, no longer has any real purpose to educate us to be subservient to their order, but is still spouting the same crap…time was when there were jobs to shackle ourselves to, but now these have all but gone…all we have left is pretense…
Anybody been or about to be put on Help-to-Work?
Once bitten twice shy of this crap.
Suzy
Yes, just like superwoman Nicola Horlick, her marriage didn’t last either.
DISABILITY ACCESS BUDGET CUTS;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/funding-cuts-hit-station-access-for-disabled-travellers-9256663.html
………….NICE TO SEE THAT CONSERVATIVE, PETER BONE’S, ALLEGED SECOND HOME EXPENSES FIDDLE, HAS BEEN NEATLY HIDDEN BY THE CORRUPT MEDIA………….
TALKING OF CORRUPT, THE BBC ARE ONLY SENDING 272 STAFF TO BRAZIL TO MONITOR THE WORLD CUP…………
ANOTHER CHANCE FOR THE LICENSE PAYERS TO SAY “FUCK YOU” IN A GRAND WAY…..
The BBC is over-staffed to high-heaven. I used to work in ‘presentation control’ at he ‘concrete doughnut’ doing continuity announcements. And the amount of staff in there was unbelievable. We had one staff member just to press a button for just about everything!
I’ve just been reading those comments from Richard and the replies and as I am a veteran of many New Deal schemes and training for work I know that training providers in the past would make sure that everyone got a qualification whatever happens as they made money from it. Any qualification that is guaranteed as long as you turn up on time isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If anyone didn’t get that qualification after attending for so many months then they would have been used as free labour. The well paid jobs that may be available long term will only amount to a small number while the majority of trainees are just being taken advantage of.
I have received loads of certificates from many providers and none of them are any good. From NVQS to ECDL and many so called business administration levels that are absolute tosh. City and Guilds, RSA, they sound good but in reality anyone who can do up their shoelaces would manage to get them. I even ended up getting a certificate for attending a two hour course at A4E a few years ago.
I have destroyed those kind of certificates as soon as I left the premises. This idea that volunteering looks good on a CV doesn’t live in the real world. Volunteering just tells the employer that no one wants to pay you to work for them. A survey was done a few years ago that stated that a third of employers wouldn’t employ a long term unemployed person under any circumstances and would wait until someone fresh on the scene was available. That’s why so many of us find jobs that we never get interviewed for always coming up on a regular basis.
I failed my European Computer Driving Licence… I rolled a ‘STOP’ sign lol 🙂
My ECDL got endorsed.
I have conducted telephone interviews for government agencies where you ask whoever makes the recruitment decisions/ someone high up in the organisation – I have even spoken to Chief Constables lol “Hello, I am from the Government” “I will put you straight through” lol – employment related questions. Anyway, one of the two questions you ask are: For how long would a person have to be unemployed for before you would think twice before hiring them? and For how long would a person have to be unemployed for before you would outright reject them? The answers were a right eye-opener. I have had as little as a week before a recruiter would outright reject a candidate.
I really should have kept a copy of the questions they ask, it would make interesting reading 🙂 But I was too busy just trying to make money at the time 🙂
Bottom test
Failed.
Happy Birthday, guy! 🙂
Thanks Ollie 🙂 Shouldn’t you be in an opposite place to me given that you killed so many people, unfortunately I never got to kill anyone!
geoff reynolds you always make great points and make me think outside and inside the box from the heart..thank you
LOL! I just got a tweet from @virginmedia to say they don’t ’employ’ trainee’s they ‘train’ them!!! Hmmm! i don’t know about you guys but it sounds mighty fishy to me.
So they don’t employ them they train them. So while they’re training are they getting any wages?
Sounds like word games if you ask me.
Here’s the conversation:
Just watched the programme with trouble shooter Digby Jones, Casey Jones the traindriver could have done a better job.
I wonder how much the BBC are paying him for this little gem.
lol 🙂
Hey Richard, is this what you are advocating? 🙂
In the not-too-distant future, a less-than-perfect man wants to travel to the stars. Society has categorized Vincent Freeman as less than suitable given his genetic make-up and he has become one of the underclass of humans that are only useful for menial jobs. To move ahead, he assumes the identity of Jerome Morrow, a perfect genetic specimen who is a paraplegic as a result of a car accident. With professional advice, Vincent learns to deceive DNA and urine sample testing. Just when he is finally scheduled for a space mission, his program director is killed and the police begin an investigation, jeopardizing his secret.
Gattaca
“We don’t employ trainees, we train them.”
Like human railway stock they traffic from the DWP and back again.
“We don’t employ trainees, we train them to work for nothing”.
“We don’t employ trainees, we train them…” to accept a world where they have no rights in the workplace and never receive a wage for the work they do.
Watch your lip, guy, or I will have you hung, drawn and quartered… 🙂
You probably wil given that you are such a butcher, who ended up on the block himself. 🙂
yourself not himself!
Vincent – how are they higher genetically? No such thing!
Mr Freeman – do you enjoy being a monkey?
Help to Work is a costly way of punishing the jobless
But the last three-monthly figures showed that all the increase – yes, all of it – was not in jobs but in soaring self-employment, says Jonathan Portes of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/15/help-to-work-punishing-jobless
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/34386959
Sanction -> MWA -> Sanction.
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/34384913
geoff
re UT you can apply directly as well, the legal onus is on the dwp to prove non-entitlement of benefits…..
they also have to consider natural law…see link for all of the grounds, note also wrong in law… http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/aa/appeals
Interesting CONcept (thanks OBD for that one, it’s so fitting) this traineeship thing. Just got another tweet from @virginmedia trying to justify their non payment of trainee’s. It used to be you left education and took up an apprenticeship and learnt while you were paid. Now it seems we have a whole new CONcept where you first have to become a non paid trainee before you even become an apprentice!!!
Their latest excuse for non payment of a wage of some sort? “With youth unemployment hitting record levels in recent years, we wanted to do more, which is why we were one of first businesses to offer traineeships to young people who showed promise but weren’t quite ready to enter the world of work. On this scheme, we give young people dedicated training and support, often one-on-one, to enable them to become apprentices.”
So let’s get this straight a person can leave education and gain an apprentice electrician post, say for example, where he/she is paid while learning a complex trade from scratch. But virginmedia want us to believe that people taking up traineeship’s on their con scheme don’t feel able to take up an apprentices position with them??? What a load of garbage!!
The excuses keep on coming thick and fast from them. But none of them wash. How much money do they get from the government/taxpayer for every trainee they take on? I asked them that a few minutes ago and await their reply with anticipation.
Seriously, you couldn’t make this up. Have they never heard the expression “when in a hole stop digging”?
Have a little look at the conversation and read the link they posted.
http://about.virginmedia.com/blog-post/101/creating-opportunities-through-apprenticeships-and-traineeships
raining
absolutely…8wks training and they argued for the retention of the trainee’s jsa, how big of them, why not pay a wage, the best part of WE, is wage experience….and just how much do virgin get paid for training people?
DWP Sanctions: Be anything but afraid of them.
DWP Sanctions: Be anything but afraid of them.
..
Exactly. Been there, done that with the fear & the temporary relief viscious circle. Well said that man.
Quite an experience to live in fear isn’t it? That’s what is is to be a slave. 🙂
Harrison Ford goes to sign on lol 🙂
I would love to see what happened if a replicant was signing on and got sanctioned.
Just remembered, the poor replicants, were slaves too 😦
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzA_xesrL8 🙂
These bastards in the jobcentre get off on taking the rise out of jobseekers – they want us to kick off. You have to let them know that they have had absolutely no effect on you whatsoever, physically, emotionally, mentally, whatsoever.
Act unnaturally you mean? It is those bastards that are the unnatural ones, devoid of humanity.
The State indulging in psychological terrorism and the DWP/media propagating against its own citizens.
What parent would want to send their teenage offspring down to the local jobcentre to face the psychological terrorism of the IDS Kapos.
Furthermore the frontline of this war against the poor is in DWP/Jobcentre Plus offices – they are the frontline aggressors f*ck all that show no emotion bullshit – There is no solidarity in sanctions.
Be afraid, be very afraid 🙂
We are working for you
The Right Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions
do not be afraid
sounds like good advice, but it is not…it sounds very rational, but it is not true/good for everyone, now why didn’t i think of that, oh yes, i was gripped with fear/terror at the time and my mind could not think straight in the vital moment, it is crap advice..and is behaviorism…yes, people do need to understand where the dwp are coming from, but that is their OWN personal journey of discovery, and cannot be generalized….we don’t all start out from the same place as the adviser in this vid…true survival of the system depends on many personal factors/circumstances….so things are not as simple as portrayed in this vid…one has to dynamically BOOT fear/terror out, and not pretend that it does not exist or one cannot move on, if one remains stuck, trapped, or frozen…the dwp are experts at putting pressure on people to comply to their wishes..one has to develop an intimate knowledge of what they can legitimately ask one to do, and say NO!, if what they ask makes no sense and is pointless, that is when people feel their fear/terror it is in saying, no get lost and meaning it…when no! get lost can be said without fear/terror, of losing vitals of life, then one is free….
1 MILLION food parcels handed out in the year to March (Trussell Trust) …
Apparently this = three x as many as last year (in the same period or in the whole of the year – ? It’s just one more of the daily “horrorstory” statisics)
If this does not prompt a march on Downing Street – what would?
Marie Antoinette has nothing on this cabinet of inhuman killers.
TT describe this situation as “shocking”; they are not wrong, Whatever anyone’s politics (if they think of themselves as broadly having usually been a Tory, Labour or Liberal supporter, or apolitical), it is absolutely, 100 percent sickening.
Modern day Britain as another lovely sunny spring day begins. The foodbanks open their doors; the volunteers flood in; the supermarkets and public places are all collecting tins and packets like there was no tomorrow in green wheelie bins.
The prime minister (so-called) lies on a beach in Spain, reading who knows what he enjoys reading in his ‘downtime’. He would appear to be having a lovely, relaxing time winding down after working so hard to create the situation that has unfolded in the space of just a few short years, back home. He’s earned a well deserved rest & as he does not have a conscience, it’s not troubling him. Secure in the knowledge that his dinner will be on the table, tonight as every other night. His children will be well fed and will go off happy to school.
David Cameron and his government of Condems – they are all about helping Hardworkingpeople. What does ‘foodbank Britain’ really have to do with them? It’s great that people are getting together and volunteering/collecting for the ‘unlucky’ poor in this way (says his tiny thought-bubble) – the GreatBritishDunkirkSpirit is alive and well & ‘all’s well in the world’.
Britain’s hunger crisis: One MILLION food parcels handed out despite UK having sixth richest economy
Campaigners last night demanded David Cameron scrap his savage welfare reforms after the number of emergency food parcels handed out soared to more than a million.
Furious anti-poverty groups and church leaders said it was beyond belief that people in 21st century Britain are going hungry and relying on charity.
The number of food parcels given out last year by the Trussell Trust alone nearly tripled from 346,992 to 913,138. And 330,205 of those went to children.
Another 182,000 are being donated each year by just 45 independent food banks, according to a recent survey.
Campaigners say the shocking statistics shatter the PM’s twisted boast that his welfare reforms are a “moral mission” giving hope to the poor.
Benefits cuts and delays, the rising cost of living and pay freezes are forcing more and more people into food banks, experts have long warned. One, on Merseyside, is handing out rations at the alarming rate of one every nine minutes.
Britain’s Hunger Crisis
Food banks see ‘shocking’ rise in number of users
Benefit sanctions are one reason for increased use of food banks, it is claimed
A food bank charity says it has handed out 913,000 food parcels in the last year, up from 347,000 the year before.
The Trussell Trust said a third were given to repeat visitors but that there was a “shocking” 51% rise in clients to established food banks. It said benefit payment delays were the main cause.
In a letter to ministers, more than 500 clergy say the increase is “terrible”.
Food banks see ‘shocking’ rise in number of users
has anyone else noticed ,more and ,ore in the media in advertising the proffered homosapiens are white,affluent.hetrosexual middle class..lol there everywere ,lol like fleas,lol,lol and anyone eles who isn’t..one of them..unless they are of some use be it financial ,material,sexual..is deemed to be worthless…..its like invation of the body snatchers
Dumb bell Cromwell, they didn’t have matches in the 16th century.
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Amazes me that Branson appears as some kind of saint when he is a exploitative as any of the other corporate dicks.
Son works for Virgin Health – 46 hour week, split shifts at the weekend, 10pm finish, 7am start all on zero hour.
He doesn’t complain too much but I see his insecurity and the way they bully him into covering shifts… wrong on every level.