" ... capital needed access to cheaper and more docile labour supplies. There were a number of ways to do that. One was to encourage migration ...

"Another way was to encourage labour-saving technologies ... but there was lot of resistance from labour ...

"If all of that failed then there were people like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and General Augusto Pinochet waiting in the Wings armed with neoliberal doctrine, prepared to use state power to crush organised labour ...

"Alan Budd, Thatcher's chief economic adviser, later admitted that 'the 1980s policies of attacking inflation and squeezing the economy and public spending were a cover to bash the workers', and so create an 'industrial reserve army' which would undermine the power of labour and permit capitalists to make easy profits ever after ... "

The Enigma of Capital  David Harvey - Profile Books, 2010

'Secret jobless' could mask extent of unemployment

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that 218,700 jobseekers were taken off Jobseeker's Allowance and moved on to training payments of equal value in the year to September 2011, while attending job-hunting courses and classed as officially "employed".

An average of 42,950 unemployed people were on a training scheme during any one month over the period, with each course typically lasting six weeks, the figures, obtained under Freedom of Information, reveal.

However, one Jobcentre employee, who wished to remain nameless, said the courses are generally "completely useless" and often did not result in finding work.

He said that many job candidates were far too qualified and experienced but were forced to join the schemes as Jobcentres had to be seen to be helping people back to work.

The source added: "All these courses do is help reduce unemployment figures." ...

Tel  21 Jan 2012    Coalition Log    The Work Programme

All work and no pay – the rise of workfare

New Labour introduced work-for-your-benefits schemes, or ‘workfare’, and initiated welfare reforms that enabled the ‘welfare-to-work’ industry to boom.

Now the Conservatives are extending welfare-to-work providers’ control of unemployed people’s lives to two years, during which a claimant may be mandated to do anything from sitting in the provider’s office applying for 100 jobs a week to undertaking periods of unpaid ‘work-related activity’ (the new euphemism for work, designed to avoid minimum wage legislation).

Under the Flexible New Deal, at the end of a year in the hands of a provider, claimants were allowed to return to the normal requirements of the jobseeker’s agreement.

However, with the launch of the government’s new Work Programme, Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) minister Chris Grayling has indicated that the two-year referrals will ‘loop’, meaning claimants could be on the programme indefinitely.

As long as they are, people will be required to take up unpaid workfare placements organised by the jobcentre ...

The Work Programme is a real threat to jobs and wages.

In an example uncovered by Corporate Watch, Newham Council filled an administrative role [starting wage ... around £17,000] with a six-month workfare placement ...

Workfare providers are often reported to treat participants with disdain.

A4E reminds claimants via email that unemployment is due to a lack of positive thinking ...

Red Pepper     Coalition Log    The Work Programme    Third Meltdown

A Dysfunctional Labour Market    The Myth of Full Employment

Work Programme: illegal scheme

A4E – More from the poverty pimps

A4E – The Initial Interview

A4e Waste Of Taxpayers Money

Talk:A4e

A4e – War Criminals, Fraudsters and Bullies

Dole Scum

Welfare: the 18th Brumaire of Iain Duncan Smith

Unemployment is only stabilising in Chris Grayling's mind

Here's what is actually happening. In the three months to October, the number of employees in the UK fell by a thumping 252,000.

The total number of people employed fell by a much smaller 63,000, but only because there was an increase of 166,000 in self-employment ...

The shake-out of jobs has been concentrated in the public sector ... there is no evidence that the private sector is robust enough to take up the slack.

In the latest three months, public sector employment was down by 67,000, private sector employment up by 5,000 ...

There are two reasons to expect unemployment to continue rising.

The first is that the squeeze on real incomes shows little sign of abating ...

The second reason is that events in Europe will from now on start to have an impact on the jobless total – both directly through Britain's close trade links and indirectly as a result of much tougher credit conditions for the UK financial sector ...

Gdn  14 Dec 2011

UK unemployment increases to 2.64m

UK unemployment rose by 128,000 in the three months to October to 2.64 million, the highest level since 1994.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the jobless rate was 8.3%, up from 7.9% in the previous quarter.

Youth unemployment rose to 1.027 million, the highest since records began in 1992, beating the previous record set only last month.

The number of people out of work and claiming Jobseeker's Allowance rose by 3,000 to 1.6 million in November.

BBC NEWS  14 Dec 2011    ONS Stats    Whither Britain? Log    Youth Unemployment

Young & Jobless

Neets number of young people climbs to record 1.16m

The number of young people not in education, employment or training has risen to a record high of 1.16m, official figures show.

Almost one in five 16- to 24-year-olds in England were "Neet" between July and September this year, according to statistics published by the Department for Education.

The figure has risen by 137,000 compared with the same period last year.

The figures also show that just over 21% of 18- to 24-year-olds are not in education, work or training ...

Gdn  24 Nov 2011    Whither Britain? Log    Youth Unemployment

Marginalised by Standortkonkurrenz

Extra 150,000 foreign workers in Britain as unemployment rises

It's very convenient to blame the eurozone, but there's a larger canvass to this report. Like Premier League football clubs which prefer to buy the 'ready made product' from abroad, many firms prefer the same route to the more costly route of actually training the 'home grown' variety.

Yes, I know there's a big problem with the demand for 24/7 entertainment, carefully cultivated by - among others - the Murdoch media, and there's also a big problem with the fact that schools can no longer inculcate the vanished 'sacrifice-today-for-a-better-tomorrow' culture which used to exist fifty/sixty years ago.

However, fifty/sixty years ago precarity was unheard of, and there really was full employment.

Which leads on to the bigger problem, which government ministers understand perfectly well, but would rather not discuss with the hoi polloi.

It's very simple: the global economy needs a globally mobile labour force, and a reserve army.

It keeps wage rates in check.

... even as overall unemployment rose, foreign workers continued to prosper.

The number of non-UK nationals in British employment was 2.56 million, up 147,000 from the same period year earlier ...

Chris Grayling, the employment minister, said ministers are working to get more British workers into jobs.

However, he suggested that some employers would rather hire experienced foreigners than take on British school-leavers.

“In many cases there is reluctance on the part of employers to take in people straight from school, college or university with no experience,” he said ...

Tel  16 Nov 2011    Coalition Log    Full Employment?    Global Labour Market

Dispensing with the Third Face of Power     The myth of full employment

Coalition sheds crocodile tears over young jobless

When he announced his austerity programme shortly after becoming chancellor, George Osborne insisted that job losses in the public sector would be far outweighed by the opportunities that would be created by a liberated and thriving private sector.

Wednesday's figures give the lie to the chancellor's breezy optimism: 111,000 jobs were shed by the public sector in the three months to June, while 41,000 were created in the private sector ...

Sadly, things are going to get worse before they get better, and maybe a lot worse.

The Office for National Statistics said that average earnings, excluding bonuses, in the three months to September were 1.7% higher than in the same period of 2010.

The annual inflation rate in September 2011 stood at 5.2%, meaning that real incomes are falling rapidly at a time when public spending cuts are starting to bite ...

Gdn  16 Nov 2011

Youth unemployment hits 1 million

Employment minister blames the eurozone

Employment minister Chris Grayling said the eurozone's troubles were behind the rise.

"These figures are bad news. They are I'm afraid the consequence of what we're seeing in the eurozone," he said.

"If you go back four months, unemployment was falling, youth unemplyment was lower than 900,000.

"We've seen a big slowdown in the economy I think as a result of the crisis elsewhere." ...

Gdn  16 Nov 2011

Labour market statistics: November 2011

For July to September 2011:

• The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 70.2 per cent, down 0.4 on the quarter. There were 29.07 million people in employment aged 16 and over, down 197,000 on the quarter.

• The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, up 0.4 on the quarter. There were 2.62 million unemployed people, up 129,000 on the quarter. The unemployment rate is the highest since 1996 and the number of unemployed people is the highest since 1994.

• The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 23.3 per cent, up 0.1 on the quarter. There were 9.36 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, up 64,000 on the quarter.

• Total pay (including bonuses) rose by 2.3 per cent on a year earlier, down 0.4 on the three months to August 2011 (with both the private and public sectors showing lower pay growth).

• Regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.7 per cent on a year earlier, down 0.1 on the three months to August 2011.

ONS  16 Nov 2011    Coalition Log    Full employment?    ONS Stats

Inflation

Eurozone crisis is a handy excuse for faltering UK economy

David Cameron: London is under constant attack from Europe

Eurozone debt crisis: can the European ideal survive?

The [UK] Government’s policy, which is to encourage fiscal union in Europe while simultaneously attempting to ensure we get something in return, is starting to look increasingly untenable.

Switzerland and Norway are tolerated, like parasites on the pig’s belly, as EU free-riders because they are small and of little consequence.

Britain would be a different matter entirely and would be repeatedly disadvantaged by a fiscally unified eurozone.

Saving the world from immediate disaster has to be the priority for now, but there will come a time in this unfolding crisis when more radical thinking is called for.

The single currency cannot survive on the present policy mix. Britain must prepare to switch tack.

Tel  25 Oct 2011

Give firms freedom to sack unproductive workers

More precarity?

Britain’s “terrible” employment laws are undermining economic growth and should be overhauled, according to the confidential report obtained by The Daily Telegraph ...

The radical recommendation to scrap the concept of unfair dismissal is made by Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist, in a report commissioned by David Cameron ...

Mr Beecroft warns that simply scrapping the law would be “politically unacceptable”.

He therefore recommends a replacement regulation, called Compensated No Fault Dismissal, which would allow employers to sack unproductive staff with basic redundancy pay and notice.

Mr Beecroft concedes that a “downside” under his new scheme is that employers could fire staff because they “did not like them”.

“While this is sad I believe it is a price worth paying for all the benefits that would result from the change”, he says ...

Tel  25 Oct 2011

Tory revolt and the precariat

Behind all the fervour for freeing the United Kingdom from servitude in the EU, the lies and rage about the Brussels bureaucracy, and the nationalist rhetoric about "repatriating powers" lurks an insistent desire to abolish all or much of the social and employment legislation that Europe has given to families and workers in this country.

European Community law has transformed the protection of economic and social rights in the UK, especially in employment.

The first and greatest impact of EU law was in the areas of sex discrimination and equal pay, but it has subsequently pervaded nearly every aspect of employment, and has been particularly crucial in terms of employment rights.

(The EU is the only region in the world in which workers' rights are legally embedded.)

The UK is also obliged by law to comply with a wide range of EU regulations and directives, promoting inter alia socio-economic rights on equality, health, maternity pay and safety at work.

What the Tories want is to reduce such rights to make the labour market "flexible", or in other words, to give employers even more power over their workers ...

openDemocracy  25 Oct 2011

Coalition Log    EU Log        Global Labour Market    Third Meltdown Log

Precarity

'Bad luck' generation will be blighted by youth unemployment for several years

For 'several' read 'many'

The ILO predicts the number of unemployed 15-24-year-olds will stand at 74.6 million, or a rate of 12.6% for 2011.

That is down slightly from 12.7%, or 75.1 million, in 2010 but the report attributes this more to young people opting out of the labour market, rather than looking for jobs.

It said that pattern was especially true in developed economies and the European Union and unlikely to improve soon.

"A lot of these young people are simply giving up and they are saying 'enough is enough. What is the point of looking if there's nothing out there?'" said Sara Elder, ILO economist and the report's author ...

The report warns that consequences around the world could be dire.

"Increased crime rates in some countries, increased drug use, moving back home with the parents, depression – all of these are common consequences for a generation of youth that, at best, has become disheartened about the future, and, at worst, has become angry and violent," it says ...

Gdn  19 Oct 2011    Full Employment?    Global Risks 2011    IMF    Is Capitalism the only game in town?

Third Meltdown Log    What is to be done? Log    Youth Unemployment

The Myth of Full Employment

Local authority cuts: one year on

Halfway down the list of 130 separate ways to save £65m this year, printed in Durham county council's 108-page medium term financial plan, is a £1.7m cut to road maintenance projects.

Which is partly why engineering technician Daniel Lee finds himself at home, newly unemployed, smiling at his two-week-old son and wondering how the mortgage will get paid.

Over the next three years the council plans to shrink its workforce by about 1,600 ... but the impact of cuts to local authority budgets has repercussions that ripple far beyond the employee roll at county hall.

In the year since the coalition's Comprehensive Spending Review imposed unprecedented cuts on local authority budgets, the consequences have been felt most keenly in deprived areas that rely heavily on state services and public sector jobs, places such as the former steel mining town of Consett, which has never fully recovered from the closure of the British Steel works in the 1980s ...

Gdn  18 Oct 2011    

Coalition Log    Cutting the Deficit    Eric Pickles' Localism    'Reserve Army'    Third Meltdown

'House swap' plan to help the unemployed uproot in search of work

'TheGovernor' should get an 'Adam Werritty job' advising Grant Shapps and IDS

The controversial plan to tackle the unemployment crisis means people living in social housing will be helped to uproot their families in order to chase jobs.

Details of the scheme are yet to be finalised, but it is understood the plan would involve a nationwide database of house swaps and the removal of any barriers to people in social housing moving between regions.

The scheme will be launched in the coming weeks.

Grant Shapps, the housing minister ... (said) ...

"Home swap direct will mark the start of a new drive to improve mobility within social housing." ...

TheGuvernor

I(n) Canada, where I now live, people regularly uproot their lives to take advantage of employment opportunities. There can be a real lack of work in small communities. Much of this work is in the North where condition are harsh & the jobs tough. I've done it and many people I know have gone in search of better opportunities for their families. While I'm aware that we are fortunate here in Canada to have these opportunities there is also a much stronger work ethic here & an intrinsic aversion to a life on 'welfare.'

Gdn  15 Oct 2011    Coalition Log    Housing    

Conservatives crack down on jobseekers with tougher rules

IDS tells unemployed they should get on the bus to find work

Government to launch work academies

"Do less, make it seem like more"

Employment Minister Chris Grayling said that coupled with the Work Programme and the Work Experience scheme, the new work academies will support up to 150,000 young people over the next few months and 250,000 over the next two years.

Industries covered by the work academies include construction, hospitality, logistics, retail and contact centres, where the Government said there were tens of thousands of job vacancies.

Mr Grayling said: "Sector-based work academies are the next key part of our strategy to tackle youth unemployment.

With training, work experience and a guaranteed interview, they will put people at the front of the queue for vacancies that employers are looking to fill."

Under the initiative, employers are being urged to offer work experience placements or guaranteed job interviews.

Ind  12 Oct 2011

UK unemployment hits highest level for 17 years

Unemployment increased by 114,000 to 2.57 million ...

The number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work increased by 74,000 over the latest quarter to 991,000 ...

... the number of people classed as economically inactive increased by 26,000 to 9.35 million ...

Ind  12 Oct 2011     A free market train wreck    Full Employment?    ONS Stats    Youth Unemployment

The Myth of Full Employment     The Work Programme

Reality check: is this generation bust?

Youth unemployment: The angry millions

Statisticians like Mr [Simon] Briscoe prefer to look at the bigger picture – but there is even less room for optimism there.

"Whether the unemployed number hits one million or not is irrelevant really from a statistician's point of view," he says.

"It's simply a number on a given day. What's important is the overall trend which has shown youth unemployment steadily rising over the past six or seven years.

"That's the really scary statistic. It's time we had some clear thinking and some good policy decision to tackle this overall rise." ...

David Cameron has insisted the summer riots had nothing to do with poverty.

But numerous statistical analyses of the rioters have shown deprivation and a lack of hope played a key role.

According to one analysis, 41 per cent of suspects lived in areas in the bottom 10 per cent of England in terms of deprivation ...

... the Recruitment and Employment Confederation ... has lobbied for small and medium business to be given a two-year National Insurance tax breaks if they hire an under 24-year-old ...

Doing nothing is not an option. You only have to look at Tottenham, Hackney, Croydon and Manchester to see the alternative ...

Ind  11 Oct 2011

This is a class war disguised as a generation war

It's easy to perceive all this as an attack on the young.

In fact, it is attack on the disadvantaged, on those without safety nets or resources, on those who are most easily exploited by the labour market – many of whom happen to be young, but many more of whom are women, casual workers or people on lower incomes.

There is now very little room in society for those who are not already independently wealthy.

This is not a generational war. It is class war ...

Ind  11 Oct 2011    A free market train wreck    Full Employment?    Whither Britain? Log    Youth Unemployment

Big Bang's shockwaves left us with today's big bust

Unicef criticises Britain for jailing children over riots

Young People

Conservatives crack down on jobseekers with tougher rules

Ninety miles?!

The Conservatives have revealed plans to require unemployed people to look for a job for several hours a day and to be willing to accept a job anywhere within a 90-minute radius of their home, or lose their benefit ...

A new DWP IT system will also make it easier for Jobcentre Plus staff to monitor the amount of jobseeking an unemployed person is undertaking, including how many job applications they have filled out.

Trials will also be undertaken to require the jobless to sign on every week, rather than fortnightly ...

Gdn  03 Oct 2011

The Misery Of Marx’s Reserve Army

The other great myth being bandied about is that the unemployed are a bunch of lazy bastards. A vast array of evidence suggests that this is not the case. Unemployment has not increased because the unemployed are lazy and have chosen not to work because benefits are so high.

Marx's reserve army of the unemployed is a conscript, not a volunteer, army.

The problem right now is simply that there are too few jobs. The facts are these: a) there are five unemployed people per vacancy; b) there is inevitably a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed and those required for the job being advertised; and c) it takes time for the unemployed to find new jobs.

During a long period of unemployment, workers can lose their skills, causing a loss of human capital. In addition, being unemployed is obviously stressful and it makes people unhappy.

Unemployment increases susceptibility to malnutrition, illness, mental stress and loss of a sense of self-worth, leading to depression. Being jobless injures self-esteem and especially fosters feelings of helplessness among the youth.

There is evidence that the psychological imprint of joblessness is long-lasting. Increases in the unemployment rate tend to be associated with increases in the suicide rate. And it increases the probability of poor physical health.

New Statesman  11 Nov 2010

A 'modern and compassionate party'    Third Meltdown Log    The Work Programme

The Myth of Full Employment

Marx's reserve army of labour is about to go global

G20 economies urged to invest in jobs as shortfall heads for 40 million

1. No mention of peak oil, the food crunch, 'parched planet', overfishing, and the multiplicity of threats to the ecosphere - and the biosphere - caused by 'growth', aka greed.

2. No spelling out the fact that the global 'players' don't want full employment: it threatens profits.

The ILO said employment in the G20 would need to grow by at least 1.3 per cent a year by 2015 to recover the 20 million jobs lost since 2008.

However, the slowdown in the global economy and already anaemic growth in many G20 countries suggests employment growth could be less than 1 per cent a year, the ILO said ...

Job creation of 0.8 per cent a year is "a distinct possibility" and would double the jobs shortfall from the start of the crisis to 40 million by the end of this year, with a far bigger shortage to come by 2015 ...

Ind  27 Sept 2011    Falling Living Standards    Full Employment    Global Risks 2011
Is capitalism the only game in town?    Third Meltdown Log    What is to be done? Log

Pawns or players?    The myth of full employment

The trader who lifted the lid on what the City really thinks

Disastrous BAE Systems job losses threaten the wider northern economy

Unemployment rises above 2.5m milestone

• Jobless total rises to 2.51m
• Unemployment rate at 7.9%
• Public sector employment falls by 111,000
• Claimant count rises by 20,300 in August


Gdn  14 Sept 2011

Youth unemployment surge triggers worst jobless rise in two years

Unemployment rose by 80,000 to reach 2.51m in the three months to July, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But 77,000 of the newly unemployed were 18 to 24 year-olds - an 11pc rise compared to the previous quarter, the figures showed.

Worryingly, the number of young people out of work for more than a year rose by 35,000 on the quarter to reach 219,000, while the total number of youths out of work for two years or more surged by 12pc on the quarter to 93,000.

The total number of 16 to 24 year-olds without a job rose to 972,000 in the three months to July ...

... the number of vacancies fell by 8,000 over the quarter to reach 452,000.

Some 162,000 people were made redundant in the three months to July, a 40pc increase on the quarter, taking the redundancy rate to 6.5pc.

The number of employed people fell between May and July by 69,000 to 29.17m, driven by public sector job cuts, which was the biggest fall since the quarter to March 2010.

The number employed in the public sector fell by 111,000 between March and June to reach 6.04m, the largest fall since records began in 1999 ...

Tel  14 Sept 2011    A free market train wreck    Falling Living Standards    Whither Britain?

Youth Unemployment

Workless households rise 5% to 370,000

There's more vacancies than there are unemployed, isn't that right Chris? Or is this a 'third face of power' job?

The employment minister, Chris Grayling, said:

"While the slight fall in the numbers of workless households and children living in workless households is encouraging, these figures still underline the sheer scale of the challenge we face.

"Over the last decade, thousands of people were simply abandoned to a lifetime on benefits, and a staggering 1.84 million children are living in homes where no one works.

"This is why we launched the Work Programme this summer, which will give tailor-made support to help people get off benefits and get into work, while our overhaul of the benefits system will ensure that work is always the best option."

Gdn  01 Sept 2011

Working and workless households, 2011

The key points from this release are:

• The percentage of households where no adults work was 18.8 per cent, down 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier.

• The percentage of households where all adults work was 53.5 per cent, up 0.5 percentage points from a year earlier.

• Of the regions in England and countries of the UK, the North East had the highest percentage of workless households.

• The number of households in which no adult has ever worked was 370,000, up 18,000 from a year earlier.

• There were 1.8 million children living in workless households, down 26,000 from a year earlier.

ONS  01 Sept 2011    A free market train wreck    Coalition Log    The Work Programme

Churning the Unemployed

Oh dear, the one plank the coalition is relying on looks a bit thin

Never worked households at record high

UK unemployment claims show biggest jump in two years

The number of people without jobs and claiming unemployment benefit rose by almost double that expected last month to reach 1.52m – its highest total since March 2010, official figures confirmed today ...

Tel  13 July 2011    Coalition Log    ONS

Part-time jobs are the only option for millions of British workers

Cable warns restive unions of fresh laws against strikes

Up to one million workers are expected to walk out on 30 June in protest against the spending cuts, and further shows of union strength are planned for the autumn.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, will tell a union conference that such moves could backfire by playing into the hands of senior Tories pressing for fresh controls on industrial action ...

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is the most senior Tory to call for new legislation against industrial action.

Speaking last year as London Underground workers staged a walk-out, he suggested that strikes should be banned unless at least 50 per cent of the union members in a workplace took part in a ballot.

David Cameron has said he believes the Thatcher government's legislation of the 1980s is adequate, although he has told MPs he is "very happy" to look at the arguments for new laws – a position that led Mr Johnson to denounce the Prime Minister as "lily-livered" ...

Ind  06 June 2011    Coalition Log    Contesting Austerity    The Myth of Full Employment

Long-term unemployment hits high

It's difficult to get a figure for the overall number of unemployed, since we cannot know how many 'inactive' people want to work; but one thing is certain: the number classified unemployed - 2.46m - vastly outnumbers vacancies - 482,000 in March 2011

The IPPR political think tank's analysis of official data suggested there were now 850,000 people who had been jobless for at least 12 months ...

According to the report, the proportion of unemployed men out of work for more than a year increased from 25% (338,000) in 2009 to almost 40% (568,000).

The figure for women rose from 19% (169,000) in 2009 to 27% (282,000) ...

BBC NEWS  29 May 2011

The number of people unemployed for up to 12 months fell by 56,000 to reach 1.61 million but the number of people unemployed for over 12 months increased by 20,000 to reach 850,000, the highest figure since the three months to January 1997 ... ONS

There were 482,000 vacancies in the three months to March 2011, up 16,000 on the year. ONS

Coalition    What is to be done? Log

Is capitalism the only game in town?    Reserve Army    State Lead Investment Programme    

Jobcentres 'tricking' people out of benefits to cut costs

Rising numbers of vulnerable jobseekers are being tricked into losing benefits amid growing pressure to meet welfare targets, a Jobcentre Plus adviser has told the Guardian.

A whistleblower said staff at his jobcentre were given targets of three people a week to refer for sanctions, where benefits are removed for up to six months.

He said it was part of a "culture change" since last summer that had led to competition between advisers, teams and regional offices.

"Suddenly you're not helping somebody into sustainable employment, which is what you're employed to do," he said.

"You're looking for ways to trick your customers into 'not looking for work'. You come up with many ways.

"I've seen dyslexic customers given written job searches, and when they don't produce them – what a surprise – they're sanctioned.

"The only target that anyone seems to care about is stopping people's money.

"'Saving the public purse' is the catchphrase that is used in our office … It is drummed home all the time – you're saving the public purse.

"Feel good about stopping someone's money, you've just saved your own pocket. Its a joke."

The claims came as the big businesses handed contracts to get the long term jobless into worktoday said the government should privatise jobcentres so that their firms could work with people who have been jobless for less than a year ...

Guardian  01 Apr 2011

Privatise jobcentres, urge firms ...

Fitness for work test not fit for purpose

UK unemployment highest for seventeen years

Unemployment has reached a 17-year high of more than 2.5 million and youth joblessness is at record levels, new figures revealed today.

The jobless total jumped by 27,000 in the three months to January to 2.53 million, the worst figure since 1994, while the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work increased by 30,000 to 974,000, the highest since records began in 1992.

The unemployment rate for young people rose by 0.8% to 20.6%, also a record high.

The number of people classed as economically inactive also increased - up by 43,000 to 9.33 million, including 2.3 million looking after a family ...

The Government's flagship new Work Programme will be in place by the summer and will offer personalised, tailored support to get people back into jobs ...

Independent  16 Mar 2011    Employment Rate falls to 70.5 per cent

Public sector job cuts top 132,000

Private firms 'wary of hiring' public sector workers

More than half of private firms would not hire public sector workers who have been made redundant as they do not have the right skills, a survey suggests ...

The survey found that 57% of companies said they were not interested in former state employees, with 52% saying it was because they believed these workers were "not equipped" for a job in their business ...

Unemployment figures released last week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed an increase of 44,000 to almost 2.5 million in the three months to the end of December,

The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, with youth unemployment running at 20.5% - a record high ...

BBC NEWS  21 Feb 2011