Let's Get Britain Working!

Incapacity Benefit has been in the news again today, with reports that over 80,000 people in the UK are claiming it due to alcohol or drug addiction, or obesity. A quarter of these alkies, druggies and fatties haven't worked for a decade! Obviously, the British tax payer isn't completely happy about having to foot for bill for what could be seen as, essentially, a lifestyle choice. The government has revealed plans to shake up the system and get these people back into work, rather than allowing them to remain on benefits indefinitely. Everybody claiming Incapacity Benefit will now be retested to ensure they meet the criteria to continue paying, or move onto Jobseekers Allowance and be encouraged (or forced, as some see it) to look for work. Last year, IB was replaced by Employment and Support Allowance, in which all ill and disabled people are assessed to ascertain their fitness for work. But what about these addicts and obese claimants? Can their "incapacity" indeed be classed as an illness, or are they just a drain on society? If you look at those addicted to alcohol, drugs or food, then yes - we could say they have made these choices and should be paying for their addictions out of their own pockets. But if we consider - as many do - addiction to be a form of mental illness, then they are, in fact, suffering from a disability and as such, whilst in the grip of the addiction, incapable of working. And let's face it, how easy can it be to hold down a job if you ARE an alcoholic or a drugs-user? I think obese people get less sympathy as their addiction is rarely as serious, and we feel that there is nothing stopping them from getting or keeping a job. Yet in some circumstances, manual labour, or driving for example, a person's size would preclude them from being able to do the job. There are a lack of treatment facilities in the UK to help addicts recover, and the government haven't addressed this issue yet. However, Chris Grayling (the Employment Minister) says that private and voluntary organisations have pledged £580m to treat addicts and prepare them for employment. Even so, it may be too little. Some addicts may find the pressures of work too much, and others may find it nigh on impossible to even get a job after being unemployed for years due to addiction. In today's job market, these people stand even less chance of finding employment than the general population.

In a climate where the unemployment figures stand at 2.48m, finding a job isn't easy for anyone. And women are at more of a disadvantage than men - the amount of out of work women rose in March by 14,000, where the amount of unemployed men fell by 31,000. With the rate of Jobseekers Allowance standing at a paltry £64.30 for the over 25's, it makes sense for people to get back into work post haste, although there are concerns that people on income-based Jobseekers Allowance worry about being worse off in lower-paid jobs. So what to do, and where to find these jobs? With a report by Gumtree finding that 50% of people are concerned about losing their job, the competition is fierce. Lucky for us all, then, that The Mirror has launched their "Get Britain Working" campaign. According to them, this week they have found 10,118 jobs up for grabs. Sounds impressive, huh? These include: 70 jobs with DHL; 550 graduate positions; 70 jobs with DFS; 44 at Sainsburys and 2,320 on Fish4Jobs (who The Mirror have teamed up with on this campaign, forming a "one stop job shop"). Helpful articles such as tips for young jobseekers and starting your own business are also on their website at www.mirror.co.uk/getbritainworking. Sounds good so far. In the last 5 weeks, the paper claims that it has located 284,735 jobs, including 37,00 IT jobs. Do we believe it though? Personally... no. Has The Mirror taken into account multiple postings of the same job, on different websites? Plenty of companies advertise through several channels for the same role, using boards such as Monster, Jobsite and Reed. The same goes for recruitment agencies, where one role is worked on by different companies. How many jobs on the most popular sites are repeated by a number of different agencies - often with identical wording. And a lot of the jobs found by The Mirror are in specialist areas such as IT, or social care... making them inaccessible for the majority of readers. Whilst the campaign is a good idea, I think it's a little misleading, to claim that they have found such a huge number of jobs. But good on them for giving it a go, and if it only helps a few people, then they've done their job. In this current climate, anything's better than nothing.

And as one of those lucky people still in employment, at least I can look forward to the long weekend knowing that I have (vaguely) earned it. Happy Easter!