I watched last year, she was very patronising.......

I can't stand that woman, i won't be watching

She's so unbelievably patronising and something of a bully.  Those figures she presented looked like the entire welfare budget rather than JSA.

Telling that young girl to keep making eye contact in front of customers was just a way of humiliating her.  The girl should have told her sod off.

The stupid bitch totally misses the point.  Telling a quiet girl to shout in front of strangers in a shopping precinct, doesn't show she had any courage when the alternative was being humiliated and belittled in front of the TV cameras.

Is this the a4e creature again?

Agree Carnelian.  She is a revolting human being.  So fecking patronising and condescending.  Horrid woman (Kat Slater's fat sister ROFL!  )  Yes there's jobs out there, but one for every bloody 100 people at the moment.   And although some people should be grateful for *any* job, people spend a lot of time at work, and if it's a job they hate, like working in naffing poundstretcher at a till 8 hours a day, it's going to make them unhappy. 

What the hell is wrong with wanting to do something you like?  The one girl wanted to work in a garden centre so much that she did it voluntarily.  Felt a bit sorry for the dude who wanted to work in the game shop: he was gutted.  The fat old git who was a secuirty guard was an annoying twat.  He is the only one that I would not have offered a job to if I had been an employer.  Awkward git.  Detest blokes like him I do.  'This country owes me a living' type attitude.

totally agree, although it's not as bad as one for every 100. Merthyr Tydfil (sp?) is the worst with over 30 people per job.  

The Fairy Jobmother perpetuates the absurd assumption that 100 vancancies = 100 people who shouldn't be claiming benefits.

The thing is, a cursory glance at recruitment sites tells anyone with a brain cell that many of those jobs require background and specialist skills. 

Yes, they could apply for a senior sales position, head of department, HR manager, Oracle database administrator etc but they (and this includes most of the working population) wouldn't stand a snowflake's chance in hell of getting those jobs. 

Even jobs on not much more than £12k require some background experience.  The fact is, employers expect to pay peanuts and not get monkeys.   I've just taken a very low paid job and I've got tons of IT experience.  I'm not happy about it that my considerable background and skills will be totally overlooked, but that's the market currently.  If semi skilled/skilled people are slumming it, then what chance do those with little practical no work experience have?

I think the program is hugely contrived and job offers stitched up between the show and the firms concerned.  Being reality TV, her badgering has to be shown to be producing a positive outcome. I seriously doubt many of the job offers would have been made.

The security guard bloke on it was a cartoon lazy scouse git stereotype, obviously trying to make a name for himself as a stand in for Jim (My Arse) Royal.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was told to play up to that persona for the program.

I can't bear the woman..switched over to the BBC documentary on the soldiers in Afghanistan.

Good points...particularly the ones I have put in bold.. 

This woman is a real creep and very annoying.  I know there is a hardcore of people who simply do not want to work, but it's often out of habit and because it's almost virtually hardwired into them, because its all they see around them when they have family and friends on benefits.  I'm not defending people spending their life on the dole, but some really can't help the way they are. 

I think they need counselling and support and help, to get them into a job or career that they enjoy.  Everyone has something they are good at.  But yes this programme is very contrived.. and I also believe that the people would probably not get the job if they werent on the show.  Its stupid really, because its making it look kind of easy to get a job.  3 out of 4 people in a group who are 'long term unemployed,' get the first job that they apply for?  Don't think so...

I didn't watch it cos I can't stand the boot, but was she giving out the same profound advice as before? Things like brush your teeth when you go for an interview! and dont turn up for work stinking of last night's booze and kebabs! 

If that is what working class is, then I might just hang myself now.

  THAT is where I have been going wrong all these years!!!

Exactly Sparkles, and in Liverpool.  And what was it about where two people from the program go for one job at a games retailer!  So the job was earmarked for one of the two people on the show. How unrealistic is that scenario to the long term unemployed when job hunting and attending job interviews?

If every job applicant had a 50% chance of landing a job in an interview, there would be full employment.

Hi again Carnelian.    Well I thought it was a bit mad that there was only two going for that games retailer job...  I did think, maybe there are another 10, and they are only showing these two...' but I think you're right, that there was only the two. 

As as I said, (and as you said,)  the chances of someone getting a job (especially if they're long term unemployed,) after ONE job application and one interview is very slim, and it's grossly misleading.  It could even lead people who have been applying for ages, to believe that they are somehow inferior...as *they* are not getting a job quickly.....

Hundreds of people young in my town, who left school last Easter AND the Easter before, (who didnt go to college,) have still not got a job.  My two best friends have five kids betwen them; three who left school in the last 2 years, and they ALL still have no jobs.  Two of them have applied for more than seventy between the two of them, in the past year alone.  Most of the time, they get no response or reply, and they have both had just three interviews each, and only one time out of those six times, have they had a callback to let them know they were unsuccessful; the other five times, the employer couldnt be arsed to let them know.

I also believe that on some occasions, the job is already gone before it's advertised.  Even in my hubby's place, they 'favour' people who already have relatives or friends working there....

Last year, an Asda homeware opened 3 miles for me, and there were 60 jobs, (mostly part time,) and 600 applications!  So its bullshit that someone would get the first job they apply for.... This programme needs banning.

Indeed sparkles, from my recent experience in job hunting, it's certainly not uncommon to attend interviews at what are considered professional companies and wait weeks and weeks for a reply.  In my experience, it's not unusual to get no reply at all. 

Yet these long term unemployed all got interviews and all got calls back almost instantaneously. As you say, all four long term jobless get job interviews and three from four get jobs.

None of the show rings true.  It's a shame Channel 4 aren't being pulled up on this pathetic contrived reality show.