You always seem to champion the foreigners who find jobs over here but never highlight the ones that do not find jobs because it does not suit your argument.

Let us not forget many eastern Europeans move here due to lack of employment opportunities in their own country. Likewise English people move elsewhere in the world to find work because the reality is there is not jobs for everyone over here. Despite this big hole in your argument, you use it again and again to justify your ill thought out stigmatising towards the unemployed in this country on these boards.

Yet you don't even know how the figures are compiled do you? And as mentioned are easily skewed in the other direction, probably more so when you take into account that the job vacancies figures include part time, temporary, casual and zero hours positions. Which makes it far more likely that instead of it being easier to find a job than the stats show, it's probably much harder.

Yep. It would also encourage people to take up short term vacancies if the amount someone earned wasn't taken off their benefits (or at least on a sliding scale). Otherwise it's easy to see why someone wouldn't bother with a job of say 8 hours a week when they won't actually get any more money for doing that job.

This might also help with people doing or having the chance to do seasonal work.

No it's not. It is entirely right and sensible.

Osborne has won the argument on austerity and now his critics move on and have to find other sticks to beat him with. Too predictable.

A few months ago the likes of you claimed 'there won't be much growth or any at all before the next election'. What constitutes 'not much growth' Dave O, please do tell us? Give us a number so that we can finally determine when you were wrong.

1%
2%
3%
4%

0.7% since your statement.

All 2.5M people will not be subject to the new rules.

They also have three options.

Nobody said they were. Try actually understanding what is written.

Actually the job centre will have 3 options as to what to do with the people who are subject to the rules.

Can you answer the questions in my post? You've been proved time and again as unable to answer questions, so let's give it one last go.

Great. Real help to get these people back into work.

You missed the BBC from your list of propoganda spinning media outlets

Any "win" Gidiot has managed so far is similar to the gains made on the Somme in WW1. To be pushed back 1000 metres and then regain 10 is not a victory, it is a net loss of 990

Can you answer the questions please?
If not we'll assume you can't.

[url=http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn13.pdfOver 20% of the total welfare bill goes on people in jobs[/url So we're subsidising employers, not the workshy

Not sure how tyou make that out?

1. That mean's c. 80% are not in work (ie c.4 times the number that you refer to); and
2. Presumably, people have taken jobs in a reasonably free market. If they could earn more elsewhere they are free to move jobs.

Did you not read the figures? 42.3% is spent on Pensions and only 2.57% is spent on out of work benefits. Pensions shouldn't be included in these figures but they are, to exaggerate the "welfare" bill, to make Outraged of Tunbridge Wells even more outraged!

No I didn't! Apologies.

0.7% certainly fits the description of "not much growth".
"Still 8% below what it was in 2008" fits the description too.
Especially after three years.

Q. How is he doing with the deficit?
A. 100% out on his prediction of how long it will take and so far the deficit is only reduced by 30%.

Q. How is he doing with debt?
A. Risen by 50% since he took over.


Solve the following mathematical problem (it's an easy one) ...
If a country has 2,500,000 people with no jobs and has 500,000 vacancies, how many of the those 2,500,000 people will get jobs?

Clue : How many times does 2,500,000 go into 500,000?
Another clue : Job Centres can't help people back into work that doesn't exist.

Wicked

Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?

Part of the answer is the nature of those jobs being of a short term or "casual" nature - I work with a lot of employment agencies and they are very good, extremely proficient in sniffing out and then filling posts for two shifts a week, or ten days shift work spread across three weeks, or similar.

Which is fine and dandy if you are a single person in short term rented furnished accommodation that can be changed with little notice, your own transport and availability 7 days a week - a newly arrived immigrant for instance - but much more difficult if you have been permanently resident in your district for some time with children in local schools, a wife working, a reliance on public transport and most important, a reliance on tax credits or other benefits or even JSA that will be stopped when you take up temporary work, requiring you to go through the whole long winded process of re-applying, and the waiting period, when your temp work comes to an end.

Interesting. You've just provided anecdotal support for what I've suspected for some time. From what I've heard/read, there's also often a situation where the migrant worker will put up with pretty lousy accommodation because they don't intend to stay long-term.

I think I mentioned elsewhere the difficulty of people being able to sign back on after seasonal work – which can cover everything from any form of work in places that benefit from tourism to the agricultural sector, never mind Christmas.

But what you're saying suggests a culture/system that is not geared to the long term and security for the individual/workforce.

Quote ="Saddened!"Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? ...'" I'm not sure of your point, unless you're trying to suggest that most of them are lazy good-for-nothings. Let's look at the numbers. Best estimates are that there are about 475,000 long-term unemployed ... this will be the category that contains the workshy, so we are still looking at a number greater than 2 million who DO want work. But, of course, not all of those 475,000 will be workshy, there are many and various reasons for being long term unemployed (e.g. 90% of employers don't feel confident hiring someone who has been out of work for more than six months(*) ) ... so the over-2-million estimate of those wanting work is probably a very low one. Quote ="Saddened!"...Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country...'" Again, I'm not sure of your point. I'd suggest there are many reasons for skills shortages but I can't see how workshyness is a logical contender as a major reason. Quote ="Saddened!"... and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?'" Do they? Reports I have read suggest that more than half go home disillusioned and broke, having not found the streets paved with gold. Also, many (or maybe even most) Easterners who arrive here are single, mobile, have no ties, are used to much lower wages and have few outgoings to pay for. (*) Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs ... -work.html Whilst the BCC is crap at economics, it can conduct a poll adequately enough.

Quote ="Saddened!"Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? ...'" I'm not sure of your point, unless you're trying to suggest that most of them are lazy good-for-nothings. Let's look at the numbers. Best estimates are that there are about 475,000 long-term unemployed ... this will be the category that contains the workshy, so we are still looking at a number greater than 2 million who DO want work. But, of course, not all of those 475,000 will be workshy, there are many and various reasons for being long term unemployed (e.g. 90% of employers don't feel confident hiring someone who has been out of work for more than six months(*) ) ... so the over-2-million estimate of those wanting work is probably a very low one. Quote ="Saddened!"...Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country...'" Again, I'm not sure of your point. I'd suggest there are many reasons for skills shortages but I can't see how workshyness is a logical contender as a major reason. Quote ="Saddened!"... and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?'" Do they? Reports I have read suggest that more than half go home disillusioned and broke, having not found the streets paved with gold. Also, many (or maybe even most) Easterners who arrive here are single, mobile, have no ties, are used to much lower wages and have few outgoings to pay for. (*) Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs ... -work.html Whilst the BCC is crap at economics, it can conduct a poll adequately enough.

There is also the oft-quoted but still very prevalent issue of a lot of well educated young people coming to the UK with a debt to repay to families back home, whether that be a real hard money debt run up during education or a moral debt to support elderly relatives, in eastern european cultures its much more common for the young to support the elderly in their own family and "sending money home" is very common - hence the low cost multi-share accommodation being popular to cut down their overheads.

I was in an agency last week when a young Polish (I assumed) lad and his girlfriend turned up at the desk, they had arrived the previous day and were registering for work immediately, he spoke very good English, his girlfriend didn't, he explained that they didn't have transport at the moment but were lodging locally with his ex-girlfriend and that he hoped to buy a cheap car in the next few weeks - their willingness to do any sort of work was almost painful to watch and the good news is that she was offered a job "in the fields" where she'd be transported to wherever they needed her each day and he was offered a post starting the next day in a hi-tech local factory which he said he could get to, he was a degree qualified mechanical engineer and they got him on their books as quickly as possible.

So yes, jobs are available and they aren't always jobs that are advertised in job centres because part of the agencies role is to visit all sorts of businesses and sniff out ANY small opportunities, one day a week will do to get a foot in the door and total non-commitment from the employer is ideal for them to fill a post that they wouldn't even think about advertising at the job centre until it became a necessity.

Working with agencies has opened my eyes a lot, the workplace is a totally different world to that which I entered in 1974

Why does that matter? Are we not better off concentrating efforts on the say 2450000 ( a figure plucked out of thin air, it seemed to be the nature of this thread) that are desperate to work? The time to chase the workshy is when there are the jobs for them to do, something Blair?Brown should have done before importing cheap labour.



These are related?

Skills shortage happen when employers won't or don't train their own staff but seek to recruit for employers that do.
Eastern Europeans often return home after roughing it and finding the streets are not paved with gold or fill the transient, low skill and short term jobs that some think are beneath them or are trapped in a benefits quandary thanks to the ending of rapid reclaim.

Some reasonable knock downs I guess. What would your answers be?

Merrily paying benefits for eternity because it's too hard to get a job doesn't seem like much of a way forward.

So make it easier to get a job.
Provide proper, personal assistance to those who are unemployed rather than 7 minutes every 2 weeks.
Train those who need it in basics like using a computer.
Help provide funds to those who need it to buy a computer.
Provide help with childcare for those who need it.
Provide transport assistance for those who need it.
Provide much, much more assistance and encouragement to the unemployed to start a new business/idea/product.


Those things would help, but the biggest issue is the lack of jobs.