Sunday 2 May 2010

Of Course It Isn't!

Having been made redundant three times in the last 22 years, and had fairly long periods out of work as a result, I have a reasonable knowledge of the disagreeable experience that is known as 'signing on'.

However, I don't want to dwell on the debilitating and humiliating nature of this experience. I want to look at one aspect of the mechanism which kicks in to action once you do sign on; the mechanism of re-training.

The subject came up whilst talking to a friend who is currently out of work and being processed through this re-training mechanism, and we both thought it would be a useful insight into the current policies of dealing with the unemployed, through the eyes of someone who is immersed in it. So here, in his own words, is his experience.

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I have found most government courses a complete waste of time. Each time I have to attend one I think to myself "Is this going to be another one of those useless government schemes" and then I think, "Be positive, this one could be a good one and hopefully I will get permanent employment through it". But no surprise it ends up the same as the majority.

One thing that annoys me is when you first register with these schemes you are told that there will be work placements available and the possibility of employment at the end of the course. But in reality they don’t have enough work placements for everyone and the employers who use these schemes very rarely offer employment as it suits them financially to take on another placement. This inevitably leads to the majority of the unemployed having to spend several months going to the organisations offices where they have to spend the day from 9 am till 4 pm Monday to Friday job searching. This consists of searching through the internet and the local freebies. Occasionally they buy the Liverpool Echo on Thursdays.

Now with the unemployment situation the way it is, there are very few vacancies and sometimes they are repeated on more than one occasion so as to make the job situation look better than it is. This occurs mostly on job centre sites.

As this to me is a complete waste of time as I already job search on my own initiative I do not see the point of going to a special building to do the same but to also spend the rest of the day bored stiff as there is nothing more to do. The atmosphere in these government scheme offices is very depressing and it is obvious that a portion of these people are not interested in finding work as it suits them to be supported by the government and to spend the day doing whatever they please.

The government thinks up these schemes so they look as if they are doing something positive to reduce unemployment by keeping the numbers down as when one is on one of these schemes they are not classed as unemployed. But in reality these schemes are a sham as they are run by incompetents who are only interested in getting sufficient numbers to fill their quotas and keep themselves in a job.

Of the several courses I have been on I have only been on two good ones. One was working in a council library helping customers with any problems they may have while using the computers. At the end of the course there was no vacancy as the local council decided to use another government scheme and as that particular scheme did not have enough people to supply this service throughout the borough I volunteered to carry on for over a year till the council sorted itself out but it had no intentions of offering employment as it was financially better for them to keep using the government schemes I enjoyed the work and only offered to work on a voluntary basis because the staff in the library were really nice people.

The other good course I was on was working for the NHS as a clinic clerk. They were very happy with my work and the Section Head suggested I apply for a vacancy that had arisen. I did so and the interview went very well but unfortunately I was in competition with two very qualified applicants. My section head told me that for all they were more qualified the interviewers preferred me but the management would question their choice.

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There really isn't much to add. That training courses are used to remove people from the unemployment figures is well known. It is also true that these training courses do sometimes lead to people gaining useful employment. However, over-riding this all, it would seem that in many situations, it is more about massaging figures and ticking target boxes rather than any real attempts to get people back to work.

But, of course, training courses don't create jobs. Ticking boxes doesn't create jobs. Only a growing economy creates jobs, and that isn't happening at the moment, nor does it look likely to happen in the near future.

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