Help for Unemployed?

treliac

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8358339.stm

Local authorities in England's most deprived areas have been given £40m to tackle long-term unemployment. The cash will be shared by 61 authorities, and the government says up to 70,000 families will benefit.
Various projects could be funded including outreach programmes and the recruitment of job counsellors.

Ministers hope that councils will be pro-active in persuading people they would be better off financially if they were in work.

Is this of any use - without the creation of well-paid jobs to go into - or just another massive waste of money?

doire_2

Ministers hope that councils will be pro-active in persuading people they would be better off financially if they were in work

Work? What work? Min wage jobs? Those on the dole would rather stay there as they would be better off.

Waste of money by a useless government

lemonjelly

The biggest waste IMO is these firms which subcontract to run new deal.

DWP pays them absurd amounts of money.

The idea being that attendance on these courses will support & develop the skills for these people (usually longer term unemployed) to get into work.

The reality is that the employees of these companies sit around, do bits of paperwork etc. The attendees on the course play around on the internet, either games, hotmail, facebook or anything. The same newspapers sit there everyday.

These are a massive drain on the DWP budget, & there are some companies getting very fat profits by actually doing nothing at all.

I have had too many clients, and also friends who have had to attend these courses tell me identical stories about how basically people on JSA go, sit in a room for half a day, experience virtually no interaction with the leader of the course, & then go.

:mad:

Graham_Devon

treliac wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8358339.stm



Is this of any use - without the creation of well-paid jobs to go into - or just another massive waste of money?

Waste of money IMHO.

Benefits are too lucrative now to make working worthwhile for those who have come accustomed to a life on benefits.

There was a programme on TV not too long back. The lady did try everything, and she wanted a job, and she did do everything the programme asked of her, tried all of her jobs, and even wanted one of them. Her appraisal from her temp employers was brilliant.

However, she would have lost nearly 6k a year working.

Can't really blame her for turning down the jobs.

What this fund is essentially doing, is what the BBC did on a smaller scale. I think one person got a part time job if i recall correctly. Out of about 8.

Generali

treliac wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8358339.stm



Is this of any use - without the creation of well-paid jobs to go into - or just another massive waste of money?

It's less than £600 each.

Do you think that will make a material difference or do you think that's spin?

kennyboy66_2

One area would be HGV drivers.

While there is temporary over-capacity at the moment, the UK will have a shortage (again) by 2011 if / when we come out of recession. No reason why we should be employing eastern europeans who can't speak english, to do this when there are people sitting on their backside.

Downside is long hours, shift patterns & possible nights out.

abaxas

kennyboy66 wrote: »

One area would be HGV drivers.

While there is temporary over-capacity at the moment, the UK will have a shortage (again) by 2011 if / when we come out of recession. No reason why we should be employing eastern europeans who can't speak english, to do this when there are people sitting on their backside.

Downside is long hours, shift patterns & possible nights out.

So you want an angry spliff smoking uber chav at the wheel of 60 tonnes?

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

It's less than £600 each.

Do you think that will make a material difference or do you think that's spin?

The only people it usually makes a material difference to is the "outreach providers".

Lot of gravy for them.

kennyboy66_2

abaxas wrote: »

So you want an angry spliff smoking uber chav at the wheel of 60 tonnes?

60 tonnes ?

What are you smoking ?

abaxas

kennyboy66 wrote: »

60 tonnes ?

What are you smoking ?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought they went up to 60 tonnes.

Harry_Powell

I suppose it depends how the money is used as to it's impact. These things never usually work very well and just turn out to be a very expensive publicity campaign for an upcoming election.

I read that some (parts of?) US cities are being bulldozed because people have migrated away to where the work is, perhaps we should follow suit with some UK areas? If the jobs are not there and employers can't be encouraged to base themselves in that area, then they should encourage people to move away to areas that do have jobs.