Jobseeker advice please

cymrubaby

My brother-in-law lost his job through redundancy a few months back and has been on JSA ever since. His partner is currently six months pregnant with their third child and she works part-time (16 hrs).

My brother-in-law would like to a college course to retrain for a good job. The Jobcentre has told him he must go to work in a local factory for a week on normal JSA pay. He doesn't mind this, but he's thinking that the Jobcentre want to force him to do a job he knows he won't like. Please don't think he's being picky, it's just that he would like to retrain for a job he would like to go to. The course he wants to do doesn't offer evening classes and so he cannot attend any other time other than daytimes. Obviously he wants to support his family and ideally he wants to do this through a well-paid job that he has been trained for as opposed to a factory job offering only national minimum wage. He's said that it won't be possible to pay his bills and rent on the minimum wage, plus his partner is due to go on maternity leave in September and her maternity pay doesn't stretch to much.

He just wants to know if the Jobcentre are able to allow him to attend college and still claim JSA while he studies. His course is two years though .

Any helpful advice appreciated - thanks.

welshmoneylover

cymrubaby wrote: »

My brother-in-law lost his job through redundancy a few months back and has been on JSA ever since. His partner is currently six months pregnant with their third child and she works part-time (16 hrs).

My brother-in-law would like to a college course to retrain for a good job. The Jobcentre has told him he must go to work in a local factory for a week on normal JSA pay. He doesn't mind this, but he's thinking that the Jobcentre want to force him to do a job he knows he won't like. Please don't think he's being picky, it's just that he would like to retrain for a job he would like to go to. The course he wants to do doesn't offer evening classes and so he cannot attend any other time other than daytimes. Obviously he wants to support his family and ideally he wants to do this through a well-paid job that he has been trained for as opposed to a factory job offering only national minimum wage. He's said that it won't be possible to pay his bills and rent on the minimum wage, plus his partner is due to go on maternity leave in September and her maternity pay doesn't stretch to much.

He just wants to know if the Jobcentre are able to allow him to attend college and still claim JSA while he studies. His course is two years though .

Any helpful advice appreciated - thanks.

I don't think he can claim job seeker's allowance while studying for 2 years. He won't be in a position to seek a job will he?

cymrubaby

I think that he's thinking more along the lines of getting some kind of support whilst he attends college. I think he's more worried about his rent and council tax than anything else but unsure how he would go about getting some kind of help with them. He also wouldn't mind some kind of apprenticeship or on-the-job training of sorts. He won't turn down the factory job if push comes to shove but he'd prefer to study for a better paid job.

Thanks.

hcb42

with three kids to support, I dont think now is the time for retraining. Can he not get a FT job to support his family?