Private firms assist job centres

BlondeHeadOn

Another one from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7903421.stm

"

The government is calling in private recruitment firms to help job centres serve the high number of professionals who are out of work in the recession.
Of nearly two million UK unemployed, about a third are professionals - far more than in previous recessions.

Work and Pensions Select Committee MP Greg Mulholland said job centres "cannot cope with what we are seeing".
Work minister Tony McNulty said the centres were learning to deal with people who haven't presented before".


There are fears that the situation will worsen further if the recession continues in the months ahead.
The sector suffering the most job losses in the three months to December was finance and business services, which shed 72,000 posts. "The job centre was set up in a very different era, when it was a question of getting particularly blue-collar workers, manufacturing workers, who were losing their jobs, into work," said Mr Mulholland, a Liberal Democrat.


"It simply cannot cope with what we are seeing, which is a huge rise in unemployment amongst the professions and amongst managers.
"They simply don't know what to do about that."

Tom Hadley, of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said that the expertise of firms specialising in higher-level recruitment was being exploited.
"You're getting a lot more people from the higher end of the jobs market with high skills, with high aspirations in terms of pay, looking for work," he said.
That category of jobseeker might not "naturally gravitate towards job centres", he said, or "get the kind of guidance and potential job outcomes that they're looking for".
"Job centres working with recruitment agencies who are specialising in that kind of level of jobs can refer them on."
Mr McNulty insisted the job centre network was in "learning mode".

JasonLVC

Recruitment agencies are just dire.

20 year old 'recruitment consultants' who are just glorified salesmen - they ain't interested in you, they just want to place you someone, and get their commission.

To unleash these untalented greed merchants onto the unsuspecting public at large can only lead to disaster.

piggeh

If people aren't going to employment agencies as well as the job centre, then more fool them.

chika

I think its a good thing - yes there are some bad recruitment consultants but from what I've heard the jobcentre staff are no better.

SingleSue

I go for my work focused interview this week....it will be another hour of them sitting there nonplussed as I refuse to do as I am told (sit and look after the children), or that I am doing all the extra qualifications and voluntary work, all off my own back and without the threat of losing my benefits.

Not sure they are used to people being get up and go to be honest...I even fill all the forms in prior to arriving and that confuses them completely!

maisymoo77

Surely with the increase in claimants the jcp do not have any other choice? I think we are all very lucky to have the benefit system and the help that goes along side it.Not all other EU countries are so lucky!

epz_2

JasonLVC wrote: »

Recruitment agencies are just dire.

20 year old 'recruitment consultants' who are just glorified salesmen - they ain't interested in you, they just want to place you someone, and get their commission.

To unleash these untalented greed merchants onto the unsuspecting public at large can only lead to disaster.

agreed, most recruitment consultants in my experience spend their time chasing companies who might want to employ someone then just post an advert in the usual recruitment websites.

at best they vet the cvs before passing them along and nabbing a commission/cut of the employees wages, i can never understand why employers dont just advertise themselves.

olly300

The governments afraid.

For years they allowed job centre staff to get away with saying "We can't help you" to anyone with a high level of qualifications or experience if they signed on.

Now with more people signed on in that category, who are vocal and vote they realise they have to be seen to do something.

olly300

epz wrote: »

agreed, most recruitment consultants in my experience spend their time chasing companies who might want to employ someone then just post an advert in the usual recruitment websites.

at best they vet the cvs before passing them along and nabbing a commission/cut of the employees wages, i can never understand why employers dont just advertise themselves.

It's so they can blame someone else if they employ the wrong person.

maisymoo77

olly300 wrote: »

The governments afraid.

For years they allowed job centre staff to get away with saying "We can't help you" to anyone with a high level of qualifications or experience if they signed on.

Now with more people signed on in that category, who are vocal and vote they realise they have to be seen to do something.

very true... equal opportunities and all!

_bankrupted

There was an advertisment in my local job centre a few years back (being the local centre to the place where the job would be undertaken)

"Rotary and fixed wing test pilot" required. I believe the minimum qualifications were being a graduate of ETPS and 3000 hrs.

I assume the job centre did not fill the role on this ocassion!