Government plough £1bn into "soft jobs"

Graham_Devon

A billion pounds is to be spent on creating tens of thousands of "soft" public sector jobs for unemployed people including dance assistants, tourism ambassadors and solar panel engineers.

The taxpayer-funded jobs are being created by councils, quangos and charities under a Government scheme to remove 150,000 people from the unemployment register over the next two years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/5927518/1bn-scheme-to-create-soft-jobs.html

Having listened to someone commenting on this, seems there is more spin than substance here, but these jobs, could be, (and these are not my words), just none jobs where actually people have little to do but train, and they will be paid to train in order to keep them off the unemployment figures.

One commentator stated the dance classes could be seen as teaching the others to dance. So a complete waste of money and time, however, massages the unemployment figures.

The government is being attacked for throwing even more debt onto the taxpayer to fund jobs that are not needed.

Young jobseekers will be forced to take the jobs, or have their benefits cut.

Also another 47,000 places will be up for grabs under "work experience". This means the government pays the company involved to take on staff for work experience, which again, takes them off the unemployment register for a while. However, this means instead of hiring people, companies can use these people to carry out jobs they would otherwise have had to employ someone for, but get these people employed by the taxpayer.

16-17 year olds will get a "guarenteed" training place, under an extra £665m investment from the budget.

Another commentator earlier stated labour would not stop here if this is succesful (which if forced, it will be), and we will see more and more people paid to do none jobs to protect labour from the prospect of seeing worse unemployment figures than the thatcher years.

What do people think? I personally think it's immoral, yet more massaging of figures, and yet another £1bn of debt thrown on the the debt mountain, just so that Labour do not look as bad as they could have done. But interested in other peoples views.

Idiophreak

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The government is being attacked for throwing even more debt onto the taxpayer to fund jobs that are not needed.

Young jobseekers will be forced to take the jobs, or have their benefits cut.

..so that's why the jobs aren't needed? Because people can sit on benefits instead.

Fair enough, I suppose...

Graham_Devon

Idiophreak wrote: »

..so that's why the jobs aren't needed? Because people can sit on benefits instead.

Fair enough, I suppose...

No. Totally taken out of context.

The jobs are not needed, because the jobs are being "invented". Therefore, they are not jobs that are required in the normal runnings on the country or the economy.

If we needed "Solar Panel Engineers", jobs would currently be advertised. The jobs are not currently advertised, because we do not need more of these people.

MurdochMcMaster

I wouldn't believe the spin the Telegraph puts on it though. Their report is pretty short on hard facts and long on conjecture and implication.

bundance

Could it be that these 'jobs' are very low waged, just to keep the unemployment figures down?

Idiophreak

Graham_Devon wrote: »

No. Totally taken out of context.

The jobs are not needed, because the jobs are being "invented". Therefore, they are not jobs that are required in the normal runnings on the country or the economy.

If we needed "Solar Panel Engineers", jobs would currently be advertised. The jobs are not currently advertised, because we do not need more of these people.

So what are the government to do? Roll over and say "well, it's all supply and demand...turns out the UK just isn't in demand these days". They're attempting to get people off of benefits and into jobs that, as you point out, the free market is providing.

As manufacturing in the UK is pretty much a "in days gone by" kinda thing, we have to start looking to "soft" jobs (leisure, tourism, entertainment) and knowledge-driven industries (IT, finance, science) to drive the economy forward. Sure, of the two, personally I'd put the focus on the second, but the investment required to turn your average doll-punter into a world class aerospace engineer is probably more considerable than to train them to be a dance teacher - though I might be wrong.

I'm not going to say this is the best idea the government have ever had, but - once all the Telegraph spin's stripped out, I don't see it as being a *horrible* idea, either. Obviously, the acid test is whether any of these "soft people" will end up turning a profit - guess we'll have to wait and see.

Graham_Devon

I don't disagree with you. But on the other hand, I don't see the point in creating jobs, when obviously, these jobs are not needed?

Can you "enforce" new industries to carry the made up jobs? I don't know.

Idiophreak

Which do you view as more pointless...having people sat on benefits, or having people working in "not needed" jobs that just *might* give the economy a bit of a kick-start or make some money.

Besides which, a lot of public sector jobs are "not needed" by your definition - if you only judged the "need" for a job based on employers' immediate needs, doctors, nurses, teachers, MPs, civil servants etc etc - they would probably be overlooked - as these "tourism ambassadors" or whatever would be - but if they bring money in to all surrounding businesses, not sure that's a bad thing.

All public sector jobs were "invented" once. Wonder if people, then, said "well, if we needed policemen, there would already be some..."

Graham_Devon

My gripe is not the jobs.

My gripe is the £1bn we do not have which they are funding this with. And the obvious intention of massaging unemployment figures, plus the obvious part in which this will mean jobs that could be out there, are taken and filled by a government placement, meaning someone is not being paid the going rate for that job.

Why would a company pay someone minimum wage when the government will give you free labour under a "workplace" which will mean that person is then training, not jobless.

Again, it's completely artificial, and only done to massage figures and yet again, aimed at the same age range. Why slap an age range on it?! Oh....maybe because that particular age range is hurting the unemployment figures the most?

Interesting to hear your slant on it though.

bo_drinker

Here's another report on it, not my daily read.
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/117055/150-000-soft-jobs-to-slash-dole-queues-/

bo_drinker

Massageing jobless figures has always happened since I can remember. Just another slant on it. T bh they are clutching at straws big time.