Dispatches - The Big Job Hunt - 8pm CH4

mvengemvenge

barrymoney wrote: »

Yeah, the massive crowd applying for the binman job was a bit depressing.

The 19 yr old from Nissan seemed like a decent chap, you'd hope he could get a job soon. Sad to see his enthusiasm go down during his search...

The german scheme for keeping people in their jobs seemed interesting. Better to pay a bit to keep them employed rather than lost in the dole system / losing the skills of the workforce.

I dont really see why the job centre staff cant know all relevant info/help for people coming though the door, with technology today etc. Its their main/only function, is it not?!

I agree, watching the lad from Nissan was depressing. You have to remember that most people under 35 don't have much (or any) experience of recessions.

As for the staff knowledge, the Government are making loads of announcements about new 'initiatives', but none of them actually exist yet, so there's nothing to tell people.

PasturesNew

mvengemvenge wrote: »

Looks at what is at just what is available for all the newly-unemployed now coming on to the market.

I expect a full write-up from Pastures New

a) I didn't know it was on
b) I found a thread in the Arms

:P

Oh and,
c) It was actually quite pointless

somabc

what was going on with that newly unemployed women, people who are unemployed do not get to stay in £340k houses in nice parts of London !!!!!!!

Also the point that Job Centre staff need more training / funding to 'adapt' the service. TBH I took that to mean that as long it is poor working class people queuing up for jobs, who cares, but if there are load of unemployed middle class people they should have their own personal HR representative and lots of funding?

I think the training scheme issues are well worth tackling. £30 / week to attend training that is useless, you should at least get the same as JSA and free training. If the government ran free training schemes for in demand jobs then people would get jobs easily both here and abroad. They should offer both vocational training and degrees free to the unemployed. We could have the best trained workforce in the world for a 1/10th of the bailout.

There must be loads of people who would take up the scheme.

matbe

barrymoney wrote: »

Yeah, the massive crowd applying for the binman job was a bit depressing.

The 19 yr old from Nissan seemed like a decent chap, you'd hope he could get a job soon. Sad to see his enthusiasm go down during his search...

The german scheme for keeping people in their jobs seemed interesting. Better to pay a bit to keep them employed rather than lost in the dole system / losing the skills of the workforce.

I dont really see why the job centre staff cant know all relevant info/help for people coming though the door, with technology today etc. Its their main/only function, is it not?!

Job centre staff = the unemployable helping the unemployed.

Snooze

As someone that's never claimed any benefits or allowances I thought it was quite an interesting insight. I wasn't even aware of many of the 'problems' with the system that the people were facing. Not getting any money at all for 5 weeks when you've got 2 kids in tow is bang out of order.

I have to say I admired the 'I'll take anything' attitude of some of the people filmed, especially the first bloke and the kid. I was expecting it to have been more a case of 'there's nothing available that I want to do'.

As for the woman in her £360k apartment expecting Clown to pay her mortgage -> :rotfl: :T . Welcome to the real world, luv.

Rob

SingleSue

Looking for work when you have always been employed is rather soul destroying...you end up feeling like a washed up, badly educated (if you are over say 35) waste of space.

Jobs which 20 years ago when you left school (or more!), needed no qualifications apart from a few O levels and which you can do standing on your head, are no longer open to you because for some reason you now need a degree (which when I left school, only the minority went onto uni)...despite maybe having years and years of experience in that field.

So then you end up chasing the latest fashionable qualification to have (appears to be ECDL at present) to get even the most basic office job or a degree for more senior positions...whilst all the time becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned.

In the meantime, they move the goal posts!

I know what it has done to me and the way I view myself...but then in a way, it has given me the oomph to finally go and get my degree.

Radiantsoul

somabc wrote: »

what was going on with that newly unemployed women, people who are unemployed do not get to stay in £340k houses in nice parts of London !!!!!!!

Why not? She was only newly employed. If she gets another job soon she will be able to cover the mortgage.

b0rker

I was once unemployed for 6 months. The Job Center sent me 150 miles down south to Stirling to study/sit some Microsoft exams over a 6 week period. They/you paid for my study, my accomodation and my travel. I had a job within a week of finishing my final exam. I have now been in employment permenantly in I.T. for the past 6 years with only a couple of weeks out of work in between jobs.

Wookster

I saw about half of it and it was quite well done. Will Hutton comes across as really pragmatic and sensible in his approach. It is a real shame that we don't have people like this in politics.

PasturesNew

SingleSue wrote: »

Looking for work when you have always been employed is rather soul destroying...you end up feeling like a washed up, badly educated (if you are over say 35) waste of space.

Jobs which 20 years ago when you left school (or more!), needed no qualifications apart from a few O levels and which you can do standing on your head, are no longer open to you because for some reason you now need a degree (which when I left school, only the minority went onto uni)...despite maybe having years and years of experience in that field.

So then you end up chasing the latest fashionable qualification to have (appears to be ECDL at present) to get even the most basic office job or a degree for more senior positions...whilst all the time becoming more and more frustrated and disillusioned.


In the meantime, they move the goal posts!

I know what it has done to me and the way I view myself...but then in a way, it has given me the oomph to finally go and get my degree.

Hear hear.

yes, I can take any job etc etc. But for my my entire working life has been in/out of work and getting somewhere then having to start again a year later. Anybody who meets me instantly knows I am a cut above the rest, but how do you get to the stage where a job exists AND you get picked from your CV. After a lifetime (30 years) spent having to keep starting over, you kind of get a bit fed up with it ... and it's a different world now to how it used to be (the degree thing).

With no degree and no clear job progression I'm in the bin a lot of the time before I start.

The best way in for me would be via temping, but there's not even any temping work at the moment.

I have more skills and experience than you can shake a stick at. I am hard-working to the point of destruction and fierce about things being done absolutely right. But if there are no jobs to apply for then you can't.

If there is a job advertised they are looking for 'an exact fit'. With 100-200 applicants for a job of carrot picker, they'd even dismiss strawberry pickers and cauliflower pickers. Potato pickers might get a look in, but if they have 3 carrot pickers in that 100-200 then they'd interview them because they are an exact match for the job. Transferable skillsets are an illusion fed to job hunters by smug workers.

The degree thing is just nuts. As Sue says, years ago you didn't need a degree for all these jobs now where they just stick it on the job advert - as if it makes somebody good at the job. It doesn't for most, it just means they have another piece of paper.