Of interest to all

[nightrider]

Nothing to do with camping but this is frightening, those of you fortunate to be in a job or those of you who may have signed on the dole in the past, if you are unfortunate enough to have to sign on these days prepare yourself for a shock, the dole system these days is designed to put obstacles in your way to deter you from signing on, you make an initial claim in person thereafter everything is done through call centres based in India. the whole unemployment department is in chaos and industrial action is on the horizon, job centres now are employing "bouncers" to eject irate claiments who have been waiting weeks for their benefits to be paid.

[crinklystarfish]

It's of no interest to me.

[colin]

It seems just when the governments 'measures' to try to disuade people from signing on in the boom comes into effect there is a bust. I'm guessing all the checks and counter checks to ensure people apply for jobs will be forgotten as the dole queues lenghten, or it may get a bit messy!

[nightrider]

crinklystarfish - 2008-11-10 8:12 PM

It's of no interest to me.

crinklystarfish,You may be one of the lucky ones, for the moment? or then again you may be of an age where you are retired and out of the job market, all in all I thought your comment was rather smug and showed lack of interest, thought or sympathy for those less fortunate than yourself.......If the cap fits, wear it.

[Basil]

I'm with Crinkly on this one! In the whole of my working life I have only not worked for four months and I did not lower myself to signing on during that period either. From what I have seen at Jobcentres the only people there are those that don't want work.

 

Bas

[nightrider]

Basil - 2008-11-10 9:55 PM

 

I'm with Crinkly on this one! In the whole of my working life I have only not worked for four months and I did not lower myself to signing on during that period either. From what I have seen at Jobcentres the only people there are those that don't want work.

 

Bas

 

Bas,

All power to your elbow but these are extraordinary times, lots of people have never signed on but who are now faced with the stark possibility of signing on, I personally have been self employed for many years through good times and bad and have always managed to get through.

The thing we are faced with here is the fact that people who are fortunate to have had a long unbroken working career do not understand the problems facing perhaps unskilled people who are usually the first to face redundancy, if you have been able to keep yourself in work, count your blessings because in these unsettled times redundancy is an ever present threat to all.

[colin]

Since august I've had best part of a month laid off from work, have had last two weeks in work but we may still go bust, we are rated as some of the highest skilled in our industry but that won't help much in this climate, as I've been paying taxs and NI for the nearly 40 years I will be signing on if needed.

[howie]

Basil - 2008-11-10 9:55 PM

 

I'm with Crinkly on this one! In the whole of my working life I have only not worked for four months and I did not lower myself to signing on during that period either. From what I have seen at Jobcentres the only people there are those that don't want work.

 

Bas

Well done Bas, but such high principles are strictly for those who can afford them. Please don,t confuse those 'cradle to grave doleys' with genuine hardship cases, who through no fault of their own find themselves in the position of having bills to pay and families to keep when redundancy or loss of job occurs , and after all, isn't this exactly why all of us who paid our stamp when we were working have a right to expect.

[nightrider]

Basil - 2008-11-10 9:55 PM

 

I'm with Crinkly on this one! In the whole of my working life I have only not worked for four months and I did not lower myself to signing on during that period either. From what I have seen at Jobcentres the only people there are those that don't want work.

 

Bas

 

Basil,

If you study your post you will see that you are contradicting yourself, you say that in the whole of your working life you have only ever been out of work for four months and in that four months you never LOWERED yourself to signing on? so how does that qualify you to come out with such a ludicrous statement that the ONLY people who are seen at jobcentres are those that dont want work? so according to your way of thinking someone who has to sign on is a lesser person? If you pay your dues while you are in work you are entitled to take advantage of the welfare benefits sysyem should you fall out of work? get a life man and see the world for what it is.

[nightrider]

Basil - 2008-11-10 9:55 PM

 

I'm with Crinkly on this one! In the whole of my working life I have only not worked for four months and I did not lower myself to signing on during that period either. From what I have seen at Jobcentres the only people there are those that don't want work.

 

Bas

 

Basil,

People who have enjoyed regular steady work for years adjust their standard of living and spending according to their wage or salary, some people are always up to their eyes in debt and some people use their wage or salary wisely, problems arise when perhaps through no fault of their own they find themselves out of work, the problem we have is when one section of the working class condemn the other section of working class when they fall out of work, they fall out of work and suddenly they are looked upon as dole diddlers, those who do the condemning turn on the tears when they are suddenly thrown out of work I saw that a lot during the Thatcher era, Thatchers mantra was devide and conquer.

Just out of curiosity what age range are you and what is your line of business? and are you a member of that rather elitist caravan club? whose sole topic of conversation seems to be how much their unit and tow car cost and who are prone to look down on what they see as the lowly tenters or trailer tenters, that was the impression I got when I was a member of the Caravan Club, I am now a member of the Camping and Caravanning Club, far better in my opinion.

[davenewellhome]

I have to say I'm very surprised at Basil's post as I wouldn't ordinarily expect such a bigoted and selfish comment from him.

 

I was made redundant in 1981 right at the end of my apprenticeship and with a young family to support. Nobody wanted to employ a freshly qualified mechanic and as a consequence I was unemployed and had to "lower" myself to signing on for three years.

 

My older brother is currently experiencing the unemployment system for the first time in his life. He has worked as an engineer in the automotive industry for 28 years from leaving school and as a works general manager for the last three years. Due to the downturn in the building industry he was one of the first redundancies from his latest employer (who happened to be a personal friend of his for over thirty years). He now gets £60 a week unemployment benefit. In his first month of unemployment he applied for over 2500 jobs and was turned down for most of them because he was "over qualified"!

 

I respectfully suggest that Basil winds his neck back in and apologises for such a sweeping statement based on nothing but his own short sighted view of the world!

 

D.

[lumpy]

Don,t it make you laugh, today the con party, came up with an idea of giving tax breaks to firms who give people jobs, if they have been out of work for more than 3 months, How can this work?

 

( 1) If people are laid off because of work shortage, how can they reimploy some one on the dole, if there is no work

 

(2) And what about the boss who makes an employee redundant, just to reemploy someone else to get a tax break

[Tony Jones]

Way back in the mid 1970s - which was another time of economic hardship - I worked in Jobcentres for a few years, and I can actually understand where both Malcolm and Basil are coming from.

 

There ARE people who just want to live off the rest of us, so politicians deliberately make the system complicated, and WANT civil servants to be obstructive, to try to deter them.

 

But the trouble is (and no Government has ever really grasped this), THOSE people will jump through all the hoops, fill in all the forms, persevere as long as it takes, and spend any amount of time and effort in pursuit of their claim, because that's how they make their living. Furthermore, because they make a habit of it, they get to know how the system works, what to say and what not to say, and give those who've never been through it the impression that it's all dead easy (TOO easy).

 

But when someone who has always worked suddenly faces unemployment and hardship, THEY find (not being "professional claimants") that it's all just too complicated, and often give up - relying instead on handouts from family or loans from unsuitable sources.

 

I haven't got any answers to this - I just wanted to suggest that both Malcolm's and Basil's postings might be quite reasonable - FROM THEIR OWN POINTS OF VIEW.

 

Tony

[howie]

Tony Jones - 2008-11-11 8:58 AM

 

Way back in the mid 1970s - which was another time of economic hardship - I worked in Jobcentres for a few years, and I can actually understand where both Malcolm and Basil are coming from.

 

There ARE people who just want to live off the rest of us, so politicians deliberately make the system complicated, and WANT civil servants to be obstructive, to try to deter them.

 

But the trouble is (and no Government has ever really grasped this), THOSE people will jump through all the hoops, fill in all the forms, persevere as long as it takes, and spend any amount of time and effort in pursuit of their claim, because that's how they make their living. Furthermore, because they make a habit of it, they get to know how the system works, what to say and what not to say, and give those who've never been through it the impression that it's all dead easy

Spot on Tony, and we all know these 'pros' who seem to to have everything laid on a plate, from free housing (fully furnished of course) to mobility allowances for that ingrowing toenail, and I sometimes get the impression that dole staff go out of their way to help them while genuine cases are made to make do with as little as possible just to balance the books.

[BGD]

I suspect that the old adage "persistence pays" works.

In the end, it pays off for the job seeker.....and let's face it, rarely are jobs other than unskilled/semi-skilled or administrative ever placed by emplyers at Job Centers.

 

But it also pays off for the "professional" scroungers...the biggect growth in claimants over the past few years has been those who've managed to wangle their way on to taxpayer-funded "Disability Benefit", which brings with it a whole raft of other side-benefits too.

 

I wonder what would happen, in reality, if Government withdrew completely from using taxpayers money to provide anyone with cash incomes if/when they do not earn for themselves.

Draconian yes, but in many other countries the levels of unemployment benefits are very much lower (and or/shorter) than in the UK.

 

In Spain for example, if you've been on the dole (which really doesn't pay much at all) for 6 months, all further payments cease unless you take part in community work from then on....painting houses, gardening, litter-picking etc, either for public land or for old people etc.

Each system has good and bad bits of course, but this goes down very well with Spanish taxpayers who are funding the benefits paid to the unemplyed here.

 

 

[nightrider]

BGD - 2008-11-11 10:49 AM

 

I suspect that the old adage "persistence pays" works.

In the end, it pays off for the job seeker.....and let's face it, rarely are jobs other than unskilled/semi-skilled or administrative ever placed by emplyers at Job Centers.

 

But it also pays off for the "professional" scroungers...the biggect growth in claimants over the past few years has been those who've managed to wangle their way on to taxpayer-funded "Disability Benefit", which brings with it a whole raft of other side-benefits too.

 

I wonder what would happen, in reality, if Government withdrew completely from using taxpayers money to provide anyone with cash incomes if/when they do not earn for themselves.

Draconian yes, but in many other countries the levels of unemployment benefits are very much lower (and or/shorter) than in the UK.

 

In Spain for example, if you've been on the dole (which really doesn't pay much at all) for 6 months, all further payments cease unless you take part in community work from then on....painting houses, gardening, litter-picking etc, either for public land or for old people etc.

Each system has good and bad bits of course, but this goes down very well with Spanish taxpayers who are funding the benefits paid to the unemplyed here.

 

 

BGD,

What a lot of people dont realise is that over the last 30 odd years or so our manufacturing base has been destroyed by companies relocating to the third world to take advantage of low labour rates.

It is as plain as a pikestaff that our job markets are shrinking, there are too many people seeking too few jobs, companies that have relocated have in fact cut their own throats because they cannot sell their goods to the people of the country where they have relocated to because the labour force dont earn enough to buy the manufactured goods, they can't sell the goods over here to people who have no jobs, a simple equasion.

It is not the unemployed over here who have brought in various schemes such as invalidity and disability benefits, they were brought in by the government in order to cover up the true figures of the unemployed and furthermore it was the jobcentre staff who were encouraged to point the way to a claiment to move to the invalidity and disability sections.

In evolutionary terms we are fast moving to a leisure type lifestyle because machines are constantly being invented to do the work that manpower used to do, the agriculture industry is a fine example.

It wont be long before men are fighting for a job to relieve boredom, professional scroungers we do have, I am more concerned about the third world scroungers that we have in our midst, at least our home grown scroungers have a right to be here and their forebears died for that right. As regards putting people to work on community projects, street cleaning and the like, the Labour governments human rights act will put paid to that?

[Basil]

knight of the road - 2008-11-10 10:10 PM

Bas,

All power to your elbow but these are extraordinary times, lots of people have never signed on but who are now faced with the stark possibility of signing on, I personally have been self employed for many years through good times and bad and have always managed to get through.

The thing we are faced with here is the fact that people who are fortunate to have had a long unbroken working career do not understand the problems facing perhaps unskilled people who are usually the first to face redundancy, if you have been able to keep yourself in work, count your blessings because in these unsettled times redundancy is an ever present threat to all.

 

Having been employed and self employed and an employer, in that order and made redundant twice during my period of employment, during the dreadful Thatcher years of high unemployment as well I believe that I know where I am coming from.

Quite frankly compared to Lawsons mess this is a media overhyped cakewalk in my opinion.

 

Bas

[crinklystarfish]

Knight… 

An explanation:  

I initially simply had a bit of a skit re your “Of interest to all” title, perhaps “Of interest to me”, or “Of vague interest to some” would have been more appropriate; whereupon I wouldn’t have set my hopes quite so high when I first looked at the thread. 

All, 

In any event, things have indeed now become a bit more interesting. I loath immorality and consider ‘professional scroungers’ as a cankerous scum. I also report them whenever I become aware of them. I hope this makes me part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. I also have sympathy for those who have a genuine need for a leg up.  

Clearly what is needed is a determined effort to assist the genuine and jettison the scum. 

There are two fundamental stumbling blocks: 1) Many of our miserable species are happy to simply exploit the world and return nothing, and 2) Public services are hopelessly constrained and inefficient, and don’t stand a chance of equitably administering the current system. 

Some possible solutions. 

For now - if anyone knows a scrounger, report them. Don’t simply whinge that ‘somebody should do something’.  

Worth a try - having the stones to tackle the problem head on. How about a scheme whereby the precept for benefit, together with an appropriately regulated responsibility for the provision of a very basic safety net is handed to the private sector who would, crucially, be allowed to employ their own physicians. 

The ‘basic safety net’ would need to be clearly defined, but it wouldn’t for example, reward work-shy dimwits from spitting out their odious progeny. Something like the Spanish model seems like a good starting point. 

Taking the NHS and bleeding-heart meddlers out of the equation, and simultaneously introducing the notion of commerce, would result, I’ll wager, in the amount of cash blithely thrown in the direction of the undeserving scrounging scum tumble dramatically.

[malc d]

The problem these days would seem to me to be, how do we create jobs ?

That's what's needed before we talk about getting all the able- bodied off the dole.

With very little major manufacturing left, where are real jobs, in any numbers, coming from ?

 

 

:-(

[Usinmyknaus]

malc d - 2008-11-11 3:13 PM

 

The problem these days would seem to me to be, how do we create jobs ?

That's what's needed before we talk about getting all the able- bodied off the dole.

With very little major manufacturing left, where are real jobs, in any numbers, coming from ?

 

 

:-(

 

Some ideas for starters:

 

Slashing 90% of regulation and nannying red-tape might just create the conditions where entrepreneurs could feel more inclined to start or expand business in such difficult economic times. New start-ups in particular could then benefit from not having brown-envelopes thud onto the doomat from umpteen different arms of local and national government six days a week.

 

While were at it let's axe the hugely expensive Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, shut down all its agencies and affiliates and instead use the cash saved to offer grants and soft loans directly to new and existing businesses to be used to purchase advice in the private sector from tallented and skilled accountants, lawyers, business bankers, HR, media and IT professionals at times and in places to suit the business concerned and to expand, invest in new facilities and take on and develop additional employees.

 

Bob

[michele]

You dont want much Bob :D

[omidknight]

Maybe we need more call centres/centers in this country

[nightrider]

malc d - 2008-11-11 3:13 PM

 

The problem these days would seem to me to be, how do we create jobs ?

That's what's needed before we talk about getting all the able- bodied off the dole.

With very little major manufacturing left, where are real jobs, in any numbers, coming from ?

 

 

:-(

 

malc d

The plain truth of the matter is that there are no worthwhile jobs to be had in the first world, the jobs transferred to the third world only serve to provide three meals per day as opposed to one meal a day.

The sooner the world adjusts to this evolutionary change the better, it is a logical conclusion that machines will eventually take over.

So what is money? it is only paper but it is paper that allows you to put food on the table, so what happens when we are all on the dole?

The government prints more money and pay it out to the vast armies of the unemployed via the dole office, the unemployed then buy whatever they need, the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers accummulate their treasured papermoney to hoard in the bank, then everyone is happy Utopia? Working for a wage is fast dying out, within 100 years it will be only a memory, the first thing to be tackled is to stop jobcentres from harrassing the present day claiments to find a none existant job, the stress levels and suicides of present day claiments is going through the roof, there are simply no jobs to be had, we are going through a transitional period of time in the history of mankind, simple as that.

[nightrider]

Or more call centres in India where no one knows what they are talking about, cos no one knows what they are talking about over here.

[lumpy]

Thats right , wlile waiting for my ear trumpets, I would,nt tak to them ,could,nt unrestand a bleedin word