Official jobless figures reach 13-year high

The number of people depending on Jobseeker’s Allowance reached the highest level last month since new Labour took office, official figures showed on Wednesday.

The claimant count shot up by 23,500 to hit 1.64 million, the highest figure since April 1997.

Figures for the long-term unemployed, defined as people out of work for over a year, also reached a new high under the incumbent government.

It increased by 37,000 to 663,000 in the final quarter of 2009.

While the number of job vacancies rose by 49,000 in the three months to January, the figure of 479,000 job vacancies was still down 24 per cent on the previous year.

And Left Economics Advisory Panel spokesman Andrew Fisher warned that these figures may have been boosted by a rise in insecure temporary contracts and part-time vacancies.

He stressed that “for millions of people, the misery of recession is still being felt – acutely.”

The claimant count rise followed a recent admission by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that jobcentres were “largely unprepared” to help the thousands of people finding themselves out of work.

In a report commenting on the findings of research into jobcentres across Britain, the DWP said: “All the observed offices were perceived to be understaffed, strained further by high staff turnover, and recruitment was ongoing.”

A Public and Commercial Services Union spokesman said that new Labour’s policy of slashing jobcentre positions prior to the recession had put its members under a “tremendous amount of pressure to deliver the best service possible.”

And he added that those cuts had “left an incapacity in the system to deal with helping people to get into work.”

Taken from Morning Star

Also see the BBC News report

Young people stuck on the dole

Shock figures released last week showed how young people have been hit hard by the recession. Ken Olende and Viv Smith spoke to some of those who have struggled to find work

Nearly half of young black people in Britain are unemployed. This stark figure comes in a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank.

Its findings undercut the government’s celebration of the first official fall in unemployment for 18 months and its belief that racism is no longer a central cause of “disadvantage”.

Two weeks ago communities minister John Denham launched a government report, Tackling Race Inequality.

It said, “Socio-economic status and poverty affect people’s chances in life regardless of race or ethnic background.”

Poverty and class do indeed affect quality of life – but race adds a very real extra burden.

The IPPR report looked at 60,000 households, including 7,200 young people aged between 16 and 24. It presents the more complex picture.

Racism

Unemployment for young white people is high, at 20 percent. For Asians the figure rises to 31 percent and for African Caribbeans it reaches a truly staggering 48 percent.

The greatest increase in youth unemployment has been among people from mixed ethnic groups.

Some 35 percent were unemployed in November last year – up from 21 percent in March 2008.

Racism is embedded in every part of society. In schools, black children are more likely to be excluded and marginalised.

Sometimes discrimination is less subtle – as a recent Department for Work and Pensions survey found.

It sent out almost identical job applications to a wide range of companies. Some had names suggesting the applicant was from an ethnic minority, rather than white British.

Those applicants who were perceived to be white received a positive response after nine applications.

Yet ethnic minority candidates had to send 16 applications before receiving a positive response.

All of this makes it hard to believe the government’s claim that racism is now peripheral.

It is also wrong to use the fall in official unemployment figures to claim that the recession is over. There are still 2.46 million out of work and this is likely to rise.

The number of people working part-time jumped by nearly 100,000 in the three months to November, while the number of full-time jobs fell by 113,000 over the same period.

The number of workers who say they have been forced to take a part-time position after failing to find anything full-time was close to 1.3 million, a rise of almost 40 per cent on the same period last year.

Some 46 percent of young women with no qualifications are unemployed.

Some employers have sacked fewer staff because they (and some union leaders) have convinced workers to take pay cuts or work shorter hours.

‘You live in fear all the time’ – Wil Vincent, 21, Birmingham

‘Being unemployed was really bad.

My landlord was only interested in getting the rent, so when I lost my job I found myself on the street.

When I found somewhere to live and was trying to find work, I had to spend my time trying to keep the job centre people happy.

But they kept telling me, “You need to look harder,” even when there was no work available.

I have GCSEs and A-Levels, but even with qualifications nothing was available.

I was looking for full-time work, but the job centre would say, “This is only 12 hours a week, but you should still do it.”

A lot of the jobs on offer are temporary. So it might be 30 hours one week, then nothing for another four weeks.

I was living like that for a year. I didn’t know if I’d have 20 quid the next week – enough money to feed myself and put electricity on the meter.

You live in fear all the time. Will the bank charge you extra for going too far overdrawn?

You’re just stressing out all the time and you can’t stop thinking about it.

I have a British name and passport, so you can’t tell on an application that I’m not white.

Often I’d turn up for a job interview and see them stepping back.

Then it always seemed to be me who didn’t get my calls returned and didn’t get the job.’

‘I won’t accept that black youth are unemployable’- Sean Orefuwa, 26, south London

‘Unemployment is higher for young black men because we are not treated equally.

I refuse to accept that nearly 50 percent of black youth are unemployable, that they are all useless or bums.

I’ve got a degree and I’m finding it really hard to get work.

It’s hard coming out of university into this economic climate. I’ve had to move back in with my parents.

I’ve tried everything from manual labour, unskilled work, call centres and supermarkets – but I still haven’t got anything.

And most people don’t even bother to let you know you didn’t get the job.

I think there is a social stigma, particularly about young black men. The way we are portrayed in the media and society means that you don’t hear the positive stories – you always hear the bad stuff.

When you are judged before you step into the interview room then it’s going to be an uphill struggle.

I think it is easier for society to blame black youth for problems rather than challenge stereotypes and look at the real problems.

We need to be more aware of why we have the problems we do – and of how to challenge them.’

‘They won’t employ you because of skin colour’- Johnny Moaonzele, 22, east London

‘I came to Britain from Congo as a young child. Then I was kicked out of school. They thought I was mental, but I just wasn’t coping.

School was one of the worst experiences of my life. When I first came here people used to abuse me because they knew I couldn’t speak English well.

I didn’t have the words so I could only defend myself by fighting.

There was no support in the school for me – only when I got kicked out did I get help.

Some schools in Hackney put all the naughty kids together in a special class and brand them as bad.

That’s why lots of them quit school – they get into gangs, end up in jail or dead.

Most of the time in schools they don’t care about us, or our talent. It’s all about targets. They invent activities for us – it’s not about teaching but keeping you busy.

I got involved in a gang.

I decided to change my life. I went to university and did a degree in graphic design

But I can’t get a job, nothing is coming through.

Racism is all around us, especially among powerful people.

It’s really hard. People ask, why don’t you just come with us and sell drugs on the street? I’m trying to resist that.

I have a good CV, good references.

But they look at you and think, I’m not going to interview you or give you a job because you are black.’

‘It’s hard to be motivated’ – Ged Colgan, 19, Leeds

‘I lost my job in Leeds so I’ve had to move back to Coventry to live with my parents. It’s really frustrating.

It’s hard to be motivated – it’s like there is nothing to get out of bed for.

I’ve been to so many companies handing in my CV, filling in application forms. But there are hardly any jobs and everything that is available is part time.

It’s demoralising. When they take your form you know the minute you leave it will go in the bin.

I applied for a job that had 150 applicants for only two positions. I keep getting told I don’t have enough experience.

I’ve managed to get a few hours a week working in catering. They are hiring people under 18 to pay them less.

They use the threat of losing your job to make you work harder.

I don’t know what I’m going to do – my life is in Leeds but I’m stuck here in Coventry.’

Taken from Socialist Worker

The Sad Consequences of Forcing People off Benefits

In June of last year a young Frenchwoman jumped off the sixth floor balcony of her sister’s flat in London holding her five-month-old baby in her arms. Both were killed.

A tragedy, but one with a reason. Let Jenni Russell take up the story.

Christelle fitted no stereotype. She was a 32-year-old Frenchwoman living in Hackney who had lived in Britain since she and her sister moved here in 1997. In May 2008 she graduated from London’s Metropolitan University with a degree in philosophy. At about the same time she discovered she was pregnant. She looked for work while claiming jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit. Then in December 2008, the advisers at the jobcentre told her she no longer qualified for jobseeker’s allowance. According to the Department for Work and Pensions the fact that she was within 11 weeks of giving birth disqualified her from being an active jobseeker. She was told to apply for income support instead.What no one warned her was that European nationals who claim income support must provide more proof of residence than jobseekers have to. All a jobseeker needs do is show they are looking for work. Income support is only given if the claimant can prove that for the previous five years they have been either in work, searching for work, studying, or self-sufficient. Christelle had an eight-month period in 2003 when she said she had been working in a cafe but had no employment records to prove it. Her claim was turned down.

Once that happened, the welfare state stopped operating. Her housing benefit was automatically withdrawn. The state, having decreed she was not in a fit condition to look for work, took no further interest in how the penniless mother of a new baby was going to survive.

This is how it ends. All the endless measures aimed at tightening the rules on claimants and foreigners in an attempt to appease the supposed, and probably fictional, atavistic appetites of the electorate, all the cosying up to the the editors of the right wing press, all the creation of increasingly labyrinthine bureaucratic rules, they all result in two broken bodies lying on a Hackney pavement.

And now we turn to the ‘coup‘ that failed – the last ditch attempt to oust the Prime Minister. I may have missed it, but I can’t recall any debate about what the Labour Party should be and what would change under a new leader. Was there a discussion of alternative ideas, philosophies and policies? Was there any mention of how to create a better Britain, one forged from the best traditions of the Labour movement, one that would not lead someone to choose death over destitution? Not as far as I could see. Instead all the talk was of who would be most likely to win an election, of who is in and who is out, of factions and intrigues.

Court politics. That is what we are left with, court politics.

Jenni Russell concluded,

I don’t believe this is a stance a civilised society can justify. It pitches foreign-born mothers back into a Victorian-style existence in which pregnancy may mean destitution and disgrace.

I agree. And as the ghastly prospect of a prolonged election campaign, dripping with platitudes, looms, don’t expect to hear anything about the suicide of a young mother and how we should ensure that something as grotesquely tragic never happens again. It wouldn’t do to disturb the formulaic answers and sloganising with the lives and deaths of real people. Would it?

Taken from Fat Man on a Keyboard

Unemployment down, Employment down

A complex picture on unemployment was unveiled in the statistics released today for September to November 2009. Total unemployment on the LFS measure dropped slightly by 7,000.

The claimant count of unemployment (those actually claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance) fell by 15,200 – which suggests the increasingly stringent conditionality and compulsion is taking its toll on jobseekers.

However, the number of people in work fell by 14,000 in the quarter (to 28.9 million), so where have all these people gone? If 14,000 fewer people are in work and 7,000 fewer are out of work then that’s 21,000 missing people . . . surely?

The answer lies in the number of people classed as ‘economically inactive’, which includes people who have taken early retirement or have given up looking for work. This increased by 79,000 in the quarter to reach a record high of 8.05 million, 21% of the working age population.

But behind the unemployment figures, another picture is emerging – those on involuntary short-time working (i.e. those who have cut their hours to stay in work). Today’s figures revealed a fall of 113,000 in the number of people in full-time jobs, to 21.21 million, compared with a 99,000 increase in part-time workers to 7.71 million.

Falling employment and increasing short-time working means less disposable income which is bound to filter through into tighter consumer spending. Likewise, average pay increased by 0.7% in the year to November 2009, while inflation hit 2.9% in December – further hitting the value of wages in people’s pockets.

People falling out of claimant eligibility into the grey or black economy also means tax revenues are hit.

The true picture revealed today is not one of an economy that has ‘turned the corner’ or is ‘on the up’, but of an economy that is incredibly fragile.

Taken from Left Economics Advisory Panel

Work For Benefit: The New Helots

Welfare reform legislation is due to be one of this Government’s enduring legacies. From this autumn there will be two benefits: Jobseeker’s Allowance, and Employment and Support Allowance. Already there is pressure on medical assessors to channel those on Incapacity Benefit into the former, where many lone parents and others will also eventually join them. JSA brings a lower income – down to the standard rate of £64.30 a week, in contrast to £89.80, the starting point of incapacity allowance – and, after six months, puts claimants on the Flexible New Deal. This, being tried out in large parts of the country, will eventually replace all existing welfare-to-work schemes. For a year the jobless will be farmed out to private companies, intensively advised and obliged to carry out a minimum of four weeks of “work related activity” (they may be “advised” to do much more).

This sounds relatively benign. It replaces 13 weeks in “work placements” of dubious value or simply stuck in “training centres” (where the only “training” is sitting in front of computers “job searching” for work that does not exist) of the previous New Deal. However, the Government has learned nothing from its experience of farming out the New Deal to private companies, two of which at least have been accused of malpractice. The faith-led YMCA has also run schemes. Most have scraped through their contracts with low employment outcomes and feeble training standards. The approximately 600,000 claimants who have faced sanctions for not complying with every aspect of the schemes shows how they are used to punish people. If participants were in charge of inspections, the companies would fail in an instant – yet the DWP has been told to contract out its new scheme to the same bodies.

The new regime will closely regulate people’s lives. Partners of JSA claimants will also have to seek work actively. Those dependent on drugs and alcohol will undergo compulsory rehabilitation. There is no clear notion of what will happen if they fail, other than they will have no benefits.

Most worryingly, after two years unemployment people will be forced onto the Work for Benefits programme. This will involve full time activity in “training options, short term work trials, a remuneration subsidy for employers to take them, or voluntary work in the local community,” (DWP October 2009). With unemployment set to rise to 3 million by October next year, when this policy is enforced, they will have plenty of compelled “volunteers”.

Some argue that since JSA is supplemented by housing and council tax benefit, it is “fair” to work for this money. However, those further benefits are paid at varying rates, making the overall pay rates different between individuals – and still leaving them well below the minimum wage.

This all raises fundamental issues. First, why should those who through no fault of their own have no job be forced to do what has up to now been the task of those sentenced to do community service by the courts? Indeed, what will happen to community service orders when the long-term unemployed start to undertake similar “sentences”?

Second, this will corrupt the voluntary sector, parts of which are already gearing up for it. The character of the voluntary sector will change. The nature of forced labour is to give power to the employer while discouraging the worker, making them dependent on the goodwill of the employer. The rights of volunteers are not the same as those on paid contracts. Groups and no doubt individuals will profit financially.

Third, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that cash-strapped local government will see this as an opportunity to plug gaps in their services. A tied labourer is cheaper than a paid employee. In areas as disparate as home helps to environmental projects volunteering could become a new national service, replacing those working for real salaries.

Those opposed to welfare reform have to date had little impact on Brown’s take it or leave it decision that this is the direction welfare will go in. The umbrella initiatives organised by the TUC have petered out in well-meaning but ineffective lobbying by a coalition of “antipoverty” NGOs with some union support. There are now signs of a more militant approach emerging from unions of the unemployed and other groups. There are web sites promoting opposition and plans for a decent benefit system that could really cope with people’s needs. As mass unemployment returns pressure for change will increase.

Labour looks set to leave behind a new class of helots – the work-for-the dole underclass. An incoming Conservative Administration will have plenty of conscripts for its plans for workfare. Both ideas were pioneered by the same person – once adviser to Labour and now the Tories, the exceedingly wealthy Lord Freud.

Andrew Coates

Taken from Ipswhich Unemployed Action

Sunderland’s jobless total dips

Sunderland was the only part of the North East to see the number of jobless claims continue to fall last month.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance across the region rose by 1,226, but the claimant count in the Sunderland City Council area was down 62 from 10,305 to 10,243.

City council leader Coun Paul Watson said: “Since May last year, Sunderland has seen a fall in the number of residents who are claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance. This is encouraging news when compared to the national figures and other parts of our region, but I would not want anyone to think that anybody is complacent.

“Sunderland’s economy is now far more robust and resilient, and we have a diversified business base that is better able to withstand shocks.

“The city council and organisations across the city and North East continue to do all they can to help create employment opportunities, and to help people into work.”

The employment picture is not so rosy across the rest of the region.
Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton have seen the biggest increases in claimant numbers over the past year.

Middlesbrough has the country’s fifth highest proportion of working age people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, Hartlepool is joint seventh and South Tyneside is eighth.

The most popular occupations sought by jobseekers in the region are sales and retail assistants, goods handling and storage occupations and labourers in process and plant operations.

Taken from Sunderland Echo

New jobless figures will offer ‘verdict’ on youth policy

Crucial new figures will show whether the government’s investment in keeping young people off the dole has been paying off, the TUC has said.

Total unemployment is expected to increase again, to around 2.5 million, but the union organisation said it would be studying the data to see how many young people were out of work.

Young people have been the “big losers” throughout the recession, said the TUC, with an unemployment rate for people aged 18-24 at 18.4 per cent – which is far higher than the 6.3 per cent rate for those aged 24-49.

TUC general secretary Branden Barber warned that another increase over 10,000 would indicate that it will be a long time before the youth recession ends.

He added: “Today’s figures will be a key indication of whether the encouraging signs in last month’s statistics were just a blip or a sign that government investment is really paying off.

“It would be madness to cut the resources dedicated to helping the unemployed, as some are suggesting, when the medicine is slowly beginning to have an impact.”

Taken from Morning Star

Dole ‘damages young people’s health’

Young people face becoming a “debilitated generation” because of irreversible emotional problems caused by record levels of unemployment generated by the recession, a study has found.

One in 10 young people questioned in a Prince’s Trust survey of more than 2,000 unemployed 16 to 25 year olds said that being jobless had driven them to drugs and alcohol.

And one in three said they experienced symptoms of depression and feelings of shame and rejection, which the charity warned could become “permanent psychological scars.”

The study also indicated that rising unemployment was destabilising family life as 25 per cent of young people blamed arguments with their parents and other family members on their joblessness.

Economics Professor David Blanchflower warned in the report: “The longer the period a young person is unemployed for, the more likely they are to experience this psychological scarring.

“This means an unhappy and debilitated generation of young people who, as a result, become decreasingly likely to find work in the future.”

Chief executive of the Prince’s Trust Martina Milburn said: “The implications of youth unemployment stretch beyond the dole queue.

“We must act now to prevent a lost generation of young people, before it is too late.

“Young people bore the brunt of the recession last year, with one in five 16 to 24 year olds out of work today.

“The result is a generation of undiscovered skills and talents. We must invest in these young people, rebuilding their self-esteem, to ensure that today’s unemployed do not become tomorrow’s unemployable.”

Taken from Morning Star

Long-term unemployment has doubled, TUC says

The number of people on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) for more than a year has nearly doubled, the TUC has said.

Those claiming JSA for more than 12 months rose to 201,015 in November 2009, up from 103,930 in December 2008.

And 58 local authorities now have over 1,000 long-term claimants, compared with 19 last year.

The TUC is urging the government to extend its job guarantee for young people to everyone who has been unemployed for 18 months.

The TUC made the calculations using official claimant count data.

It wants to see the long-term unemployed entitled to a job paying at least the minimum wage for a minimum of six months.

Job Seeker’s Allowance currently stands at £50.95 a week for 16-24 year olds, and £64.30 a week for those aged 25 and over.

Damaging

The TUC is also calling for more help for those groups it says are at most risk of becoming the long-term unemployed.

These include people over 50, those who have spent a long time out of the labour market while caring for children or those with a history of unemployment.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber says long-term joblessness is damaging.

“Every job loss is a human tragedy, but when people are out of work for over a year they risk being permanently scarred by joblessness,” he said.

“The government should extend its job guarantee for young people to anyone out of work for 18 months to stop people getting mired in semi-permanent joblessness.”

In his recent pre-Budget report, Alistair Darling announced that the government was extending its guarantee of a job or training to all young people who had been unemployed for six months.

Previously only those under 24 years old who had been jobless for 12 months were eligible.

The chancellor said he hoped to raise £550m from a 50% tax on bankers’ bonuses to help ease unemployment.

In response to the TUC report, work and pensions minister Helen Goodman said long-term unemployment was an issue the government was trying to tackle.

“Action taken to help people back to work in the teeth of a deep global recession, backed by £5bn, has had a significant impact,” she said.

“At 12 months unemployment everyone gets intensive support through the government’s flagship flexible New Deal programme.”

Part-time workers

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit fell by 6,300 in November to 1.63 million, the first fall in claimants since February 2008.

However the number of people unemployed in the UK, using the government’s preferred measure, now stands at 2.49 million.

These figures show that the number of people jobless for more than a year increased by 49,000 in the latest quarter to 620,000, the highest since 1997.

The number of people who say they are working part-time because they cannot find a full-time position rose by 34,000 in the quarter and now stands at over 1 million.

Taken from BBC News