I like this Wikipedia entry;

600,000 available jobs. They should be made to take a job, even if it isn’t the ideal job that they want. There are a lot of people in jobs that aren’t there ideal, why should some be treated different than others.

Are you getting confused? Is this all a bit complicated?

Demonstration of some great intellectual debating skills! 🙄

iolo – Member
Doesn’t have to be food. Pensioners have to eat so I’m sure they would supply food.
Helping in animal rescue centers.
Driving disabled children in a minibus.
Help in charity shop.
Collect rubbish.
Clean statues.
Whatever you can think of.
Be as pedantic as you want wwaswas.
Helping people or having pride in your environment is a good thing.

Why should these people(pensioners and old folks etc) have to deal with the feckless in society,?

Plus that’s quite an infrastructure you’d need to set up to supervise all these people. That isn’t free.

LHS – Member
600,000 available jobs. They should be made to take a job, even if it isn’t the ideal job that they want.

Why should employers be made to employ useless people?

Are you saying that all out of work people are useless? Bit of a gross generalisation.

@sesomeah77
If you don’t get it you never will.
Ah well.

LHS – Member
Are you saying that all out of work people are useless? Bit of a gross generalisation.

If they need to be forced into taking a job, that’s probably a good indicator.

If anyone can propose some way to target and penalise the genuinely lazy and workshy, without collateral damage, I’m all for it. But none of the proposals seem to even attempt that.

trail_rat – Member

Did we do millibands headline grab last week on the vow to ban zero hour contracts ?

First good thing to come out his pie hole ….

Thing is though, not everyone on a zero hours contract is unhappy. So that’s a bit tricky.

Its not a case of “I wanted to be an astronaut, and there aren’t any vacancies at the moment”

What if the job available was a minimum wage, zero hours contract? Because if you looked at the 600, 000 jobs apparently available, I reckon about 90% of them will be.

Would you take it then? So you give up your benefits, sign off, for no guaranteed working hours, and after working a full week, you could be considerably worse off than when you were on benefits. How about then?

Honest to god! You hard-of-thinking right wingers need to start asking a few questions about the reality of the situation, rather than just spouting made-up statistics, and biased editorial, government fed claptrap 🙄

Doesn’t have to be food. Pensioners have to eat so I’m sure they would supply food.
Helping in animal rescue centers.
Driving disabled children in a minibus.
Help in charity shop.
Collect rubbish.
Clean statues.
Whatever you can think of.
Be as pedantic as you want wwaswas.

But it is all in the detail;

So pensioners should let complete strangers in their house to cook food for them? Or should we create an infrastructure (and who pays for that) to run the whole thing?

We already pay people to collect rubbish – should they all be made redundant?

Driving disabled children in a minibus. really? In who’s minibus and with what training – does everyone who’s been unemployed for 2 years now have a psv licence and a CRB check?

It’s easy to say ‘just get them to do stuff’ but it’s about implementing it and protecting those being ‘helped’.

And if the stuff being done is important to our society why aren’t we paying people properly to do it.

If it’s irrelevant ‘make work’ then don’t dress it up as anything but that.

iolo – Member
@sesomeah77
If you don’t get it you never will.
Ah well.

I do get it completely, I just totally disagree and believe there is a section of society beyond help and keeping them placated at the minimum level is probably the best solution.

Rather than trying to fix broken people. I’d spend my time and resourse on the next generation and figure out why people get themselves into the situation of being completely lost to the system and try fixing that. you know prevention rather than this cure nonsense we hear.

Honest to god! You hard-of-thinking right wingers need to start asking a few questions about the reality of the situation, rather than just spouting made-up statistics, and biased editorial, government fed claptrap

Always a lot of reasons and excuses why something can’t be done, but no real desire for why things can be done. The main problem here really.

The government seem very keen on attacking the unemployed. They seem considerably more relaxed about the fact that a large percentage of the ‘jobs’ created, that they now want to force the unemployed to take, do not pay a wage that is possible to live on

If they were addressing that side of the equation too, then I’d be considerably less cynical about their intentions. But so far they have shown absolutely zero willingness to even engage with the issue. I doubt the Daily Mail will be running any crusading campaigns for a living wage any time soon either

600,000 jobs – so what? There are always jobs on the market and always people looking for them. For this stat to have any meaning you need to look at trend of vacancies versus workforce versus unemployment over time as a minimum ie what is normal/healthy/unhealthy churn. And you have to do this by geography. And no I’m not going to do this for you.

What can be done – improve competiveness of UK through up-skilling (not downward pressure on wages by hammering unemployed – see my post above for how this works- or relaxing employment regulation) We will never compete internationally on cheap labour. Infrastructure investment to improve competitiveness and to provide skilled work and training opportunities in the short/medium-run. Introduce living wage on back of up-skilled economy – more money into pockets of workers who will buy stuff so increase consumption and economic growth.

I reckon if all the food banks offer to give all the long term unemployed unpaid work half the cabinets heads would explode trying to cope.

They could be put to work loading the disabled and foreigners into the ovens.

It’s a bad policy solution to an intractible problem that’s the byproduct of us living in a relatively civilized society. Better to focus resources on the next generation.

Perhaps we could build big houses where the unemployed would be given accommodation as well as food. They just have to work all day in these big houses all day for their food and board.

But what would we call them?

But what would we call them?

“Houses for the Poor”

“Houses for Work”

Both feel close but not quite right.

Always a lot of reasons and excuses why something can’t be done, but no real desire for why things can be done. The main problem here really.

Yes the main problem is people with their inconvenient facts and evidence that get in the way of unthinking heartless right-wing dogma.

The whole not letting people volunteer as they are not then available for work has always seemed crazy to me. Perhaps Job Seekers Allowance should be treated as a wage, so if you get £72 that represents 9 hours volunteering somewhere that you can do without penalty. But that would be far too sensible…

The whole not letting people volunteer as they are not then available for work has always seemed crazy to me. Perhaps Job Seekers Allowance should be treated as a wage, so if you get £72 that represents 9 hours volunteering somewhere that you can do without penalty. But that would be far too sensible…

This makes sense, IMO benefits should be a last resort for a limited time to help you get back on your feet. You should not be able to make a living/life from it. No reason why people cant work a few hours for the money they get, it would still leave them time to search for jobs and attend interviews.

according the link, it is possible to volunteer and get JSA as long as you tell DWP and can attend interviews/pack it in at short notice if you are offered a job. I think the problem has been where people doing voluntary work have been required to stop to do unpaid “training” type jobs.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/volunteering-while-getting-benefits-leaflet

600,000 jobs available from what I heard on Radio 4 this morning.

Are these the ones on the Job Centre employment portal? If they are then this has been shown to be a scam in the past.

If 150000 of these jobs require a degree how is this going to help the average job-seeker who doesn’t have this piece of paper? And we’re down to 450000 jobs that real out of work people can do. How many are unemployed, the real number not those claiming benefits but those eligible for benefits?

Until our government gets busy on making real jobs available all of this is window dressing and garnish.

Maybe if we did something radical like, for example, collected all the tax that people like Mr Ecclestone or companies like Vodafone owe on their earnings in this country there would be less need to demonise the poor and unfortunate of our society. And there would be less of a hole (considerable smaller hole) in our public finances. To claim that companies will **** off out of it if we tax them proportionately is a crock as someone somewhere would be happy to work at the going rate to make money.

Let them go we don’t need no subsidy junky multi billion companies they are a drain on our society. You want to profit in the UK pay your bloody taxes otherwise you are a succubus.

Maybe if we did something radical like, for example, collected all the tax that people like Mr Ecclestone or companies like Vodafone owe on their earnings in this country

The two are mutually exclusive problems. Collecting more tax shouldn’t mean that we should tolerate a failing benefits system.

shouldn’t mean that we should tolerate a failing benefits system.

Jesus wept. I was right. You really are Iain Duncan Smith, aren’t you. Nice haircut! 😀

Yes its dysfunctional. But Its the multinational companies that are the real ‘benefits scroungers’ here. We’re effectively subsidising them to not pay a living wage. They can get away with paying their staff a pittance, while making billions in profit, because the state then makes up the difference.

The massive, ever increasing housing benefit bill is sky rocketing not because of the unemployed, but because of the working poor. The people on minimum wage. But does the government do anything, even to suggest changing this. Do they ****! They’re busy trying to drive down wage costs and conditions yet further, while continuing pouring billions into tax credits and housing benefit to subsidise these companies subsistence-level wage rates

So when these same companies end up paying no tax, then its insult too injury. So the 2 are entirely linked

Unless you really are wedded to the blind right-wing dogma that refuses to countenance such things. Any more soundbites you’d like to chip in with? Clearly if you say them often enough, people believe them 🙄

That’s one narrow-minded way to look at it.

It’s a culture thing in the UK unfortunately. People become transfixed that they are owed something for doing nothing and it is all too easy to blame it on companies rather than the individual themselves. The knee-jerk rhetoric of tax-dodging corporations is a bit daily mail isn’t it?

Binners for PM!

Edited to say that there’s been some nasty stuff spouted here. 😐

Nick Clegg.

Has anyone been watching the TV programme ‘How to get a Council house’ in Tower Hamlets?

Do any of you honestly believe that it’s easy for those unfortunate people to secure employment?

People become transfixed that they are owed something for doing nothing and it is all too easy to blame it on companies rather than the individual themselves.

You’re slipping! You’re meant to use the words ‘culture of entitlement’. The culture of entitlement where those bloody spongers think £71 a week is a god-given right! But don’t mention the bankers who are demanding bonuses of 200% of salary, as thats totally different, and isn’t a ‘culture of entitlement’ in the slightest. As isn’t an MP’s right to flip their homes, and claim their mortgages on expenses. Nothing entitle-ish about that!

You just keep repeating your mantra. As grum pointed out above… don’t be letting yourself be swayed by anything as inconvenient as those pesky ‘facts’. Who needs them when you’re an evangelist for a capitalist utopia, where the entrepreneurial of spirit are finally free from the shackles of providing a welfare system, and can fulfil they’re true potential

LHS – Member

It’s a culture thing in the UK unfortunately. People become transfixed that they are owed something for doing nothing and it is all too easy to blame it on companies

Perhaps some; but I’d say far more people are obsessed with the idea that the unemployed are all feckless workshy wasters. I got a taste of that after I was made redundant, almost from day 1 people were sniffy that I wasn’t working. A weird mix of jealousy and pig igorance imo.

Those pesky facts. If you do something illegal then you go to court for it and lose your job. Bankers bonuses and corporation tax is just another example of knee-jerk headline grabbing Daily Mail esk reactions. Why is it necessary to encourage mediocrity at one end of the spectrum to offset failings in the system at the other end.

Bankers bonuses and corporation tax is just another example of knee-jerk headline grabbing Daily Mail esk reactions.

Not just the Daily Mail, they get headlines in most papers.

I think the whole ‘culture of entitlement’ thing is a smokescreen to hide the real swindling going on at the top of the pile. Most unemployed people don’t want to be in that position.

So much is made of the ‘won’t work’ types, but I’d guess that those people are such a tiny minority of people on benefits that, as a society, we may as well pay them their princely £71 per week. It’s got to be better than the social cost of forcing them into poverty and crime.

The problem is that there’s no real way of opting out of the system should one choose to. In an ideal world, if you didn’t want to ‘work’ you could go and build yourself a shack in the woods and live off the land. Except all the land is privately owned so that wouldn’t work. And anyway, the bone-idle wasters would be too feckless and LAZY to build a shack anyway eh LHS 😉

I think society should support those who don’t want to play the game as there isn’t any alternative.

Encouraging mediocrity? Hmmmmmmm. If only those bankers had been mediocre. The Barclays lot demanding their 200% bonuses were the architects of a 32% drop in profits. Thats a long way from mediocrity. isn’t it?

Perhaps Michael Gove could propose the same system for his performance related pay for teachers. So if a new headmaster takes over a school. After his first year, the number of GCSE passes has dropped by 32%. What response would he get if he threatened to have a hissy fit, and demand an absolutely massive pay rise for his far-from-mediocre performance?

The problem people have with boardroom and bankers pay is that it has no link with performance or results. Therefore the ‘culture of entitlement’ is entirely applicable. They all sit on each others renumeration committees and wave through each others obscene pay rises and bonuses, fully supported by a government that has for 4 years demanded ‘wage restraint’ (reality: pay cuts!) for everyone else, and continues to persecute the poor, and make sure that they carry the burden of a financial crisis which was caused by…. who? I forget. Oh yeah…. the same bankers now demanding yet further increases in their thoroughly undeserved bonuses

You couldn’t make it up! You certainly couldn’t defend it with a straight face, unless…..

😆

Bully.

The problem people have with boardroom and bankers pay is that it has no link with performance or results.

Evidence. (apart from daily mail esk knee jerking)

How do you know that a boardroom member of staff has not been a superior performer and should be renumerated according to market conditions.

If someone sells £100m of sales but only gets paid £100k a year, why are they not entitled to a £200k bonus? That’s only 0.2% of there total sales?

Really? Bless.

🙄

Northwind – Member
Perhaps some; but I’d say far more people are obsessed with the idea that the unemployed are all feckless workshy wasters.

I should make it clear that I don’t believe all are like that, as I mentioned there is a section though that it’s just easier to allow to exist on benefits and always will.

I’m well with the program of a living wage and scrapping big business subsidies, government doing it’s job properly by creating well paid jobs that people want to do etc.

That ok for you buttercup?

Pay packages designed to incentivise FTSE 100 chief executives had little effect on company performance, it found.