i don't get that?

Basically, if you've been signing on at the jobcentre for a year then you get farmed out to a private company who get paid millions by the government for taking you over.

You either get sent to Action 4 Employment or (I think) Reed. I went to A4e for 3 months some time ago. It was bloody miserable. They stick you in a room painted the colour of sick with about 10 other people and 4 dodgy computers between you and then get told to search for jobs for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Anyone who is seriously looking for work will know how ridiculous a task this is. I really resent this since I'm currently (a) jobsearching by myself every day, thank you very much, (b) studying for a new career funded by my redundancy money and (c) doing voluntary work 3 days a week in order to back up my training and improve my CV.

cheers ,i didn't  know they did that, you do wonder who thinks all this up and at what cost,i doubt it's cost effective.

It's thought up by politicians who believe that being nasty to the unemployed is a vote winner.

Oh God I used to deal with Reed for recruitment. They're shite.That sounds like a right ordeal Pete, and I hate the way that every active Jobseeker seems to be compartmentalised, this sort of stuff should be means tested. Sounds a great system for the lazy gits who could actually go out and get a job that doesn't require a hell of a lot of brain power, but for people like you who want to progress in a particular field and make use of your knowledge they should be supporting this on an individual/case by case basis, not shove you in a room with 10 others who would rather be lying in bed till midday and sponge off the Government cos their life ambition doesn't go beyond where the next packet of fags is coming from

But what's really awful, Karma, is that most of the people there can't get a job, either because they're discriminated against for being too old or else because they have some kind of mental disorder. 3 months of that was bad enough. I really don't know how I'm going to cope with a year of it!

Someone on squillions a year thinks this up and as for being cost effective, well the Govt dont give a toss. They will draw money back from the sick and disabled as they usually do.

Bloody hell so it's more of a 'specialised' (for want of a better word) campaign then? That's even worse. Get thee on to that website and tell Nick Clegg what you think my dear! He's so keen to hear what the people want - let him have it with both barrels! OR better still - suggest that those running the country spend 2 weeks having to live like normal folk trying to get ahead but who are getting penalised for doing so. Blimey I'd be doing my nut if I had to do any of that stuff. Yes social order is necessary but there are limits!

I'll see what happens tomorrow, but I'm thinking of getting in touch with my MP and starting a campaign to change the system.

I was gonna suggest talking to your MP but more from an individual circumstance perspective. Hope it goes as ok as it can Peter x

Thanks, Karma. I'm trying not to dwell on it

I'm one of those despised receivers of incapacity benefit. I'm waiting with baited breath for my letter to have a medical to find out whether I'm a fraud or not.

{{{cologne}}} that's awful

Peter Cat, they will put me down on the list of just about to kick the bucket, but I'm more than willing to work fultime at home doing proof teading and translations. Only ptoblem is, none of them has ever found a job for me and when I do it myself, it's the mother of all problems trying to make it understood to the people that have taken over the lunatic assylum.

I hear that! They just can't deal with people on an individual basis, even if we're trying harder than most to fend for ourselves. It doesn't work for them unless they can put you into a box.

they probs make it horrible for a whole year so that people give up,and see working in maccyd's as  being  the only way out.

reed get their bonus, govt. gets a reduction in the figures and  i bet the majority who take that option, never  manage to get out of the low paid, tedious job.

sorry peter.

but, there are 6 million working in the public  sector, and 3 million on long term incapacity allowances and then the couple of million  on job seekers allowances,it's just fiscally unsupportable . 

i dunno what the answer is,and if the hope is that the private sector will expand enough to mop up the  million or so who will get the push from the public sector, then the banks need to start lending to companies and business start ups.

but they won't, we are still clinging to the illusion that the banks operate as they used to,they have no interest in local business or the community, they tout for customers,portraying themselves as caring and helping  us, as we can see from their ads,like hsbc, the local,understanding bank, ha! my arse, they  want more customers so they can sell more insurance to them and other such shite, then they can take your hard earned and gamble with it.

Did you see that series of programmes on this?  The woman who thought up the scheme lives in a very nice house indeed, seems to be doing very well out of it.

My daughter was unemployed for 6 months - not long in the scheme of things but long enough for her to see how absolutely soul destroying it is. Yes there may well be a SMALL minority who do not want to work ( there is always someone who will buck every system) but mostly the job centre was full of ( as someone wrote further up) ordinary people who just want to get a job and get on with their lives. One of the saddest cases she told me about was this very smart man in his late 50's who used to dress up in a suit every week and always had a portfolio full of papers . The job centre is full of the bewildered. Some of the assistants were fine but my girl was seen one week by a nasty little oik who was delighted that she couldn't find a job as she was a graduate and it didn't seem that going to university did any good did it. ( He actually implied that as she had been to uni she probably was worse off).
My girl used to painstakingly fill the booklet they give you every week to prove she was looking for work and then she started doing voluntary work at the local hospital which did in fact lead to a permanent job.
Our local paper has a website on which you can comment on the stories . You wouldn't believe the nasty comments on there about unemployed people - I just hope it never happens to any of these nasties.
In this climate no one is safe - there is no such thing as a job for life any more.
I do feel for you Peter, I hope your luck changes soon.

I've been sent to one of these places as well, mine is called Working Links and your right what a bloody waste of time they are, my consultant is about 18 and he's telling ME what to do and where i'm going wrong  last week when i got there, he told me he couldn't see me that day as he was running late (just happened to be the day England where playing) gave me my bus fare and told me to go home, thats another thing, they pay everyones bus fares as well, surely this must be costing the goverment thousands

This is what makes me so mad Aimee!  I bet you have to gear yourself up to go everyweek and you get treated like that.

your right Isadora, they make you feel a right idiot as well, i was told when it gets to doing job searches (which i do anyway) i have to go in, read the local job paper, which has got about 3 pages of jobs and thats it, it takes me 45 minutes just to get there and they send you home after 10 minutes


The bloke did make me laugh the other day though, they make you do this test when you first go there and it was 10 - 8 sort of thing, i admit there was some people who where stuck and asking me the answers  when i went the following week, this 18 yr little squirt congratulated me on being able to do my sums

LOL It was probably the same oik that told my daughter she had wasted her time going to university!  Jealous or what?
I  just feel so bloody sorry for all of you. The fact that you can keep your sense of humour is amazing.

Sorry to hear that Peter. And Cologne, all the best with your stuff too.
All this is so grim.

I will find out on Wednesday if I still have the job I have had for 30 years.

I have almost given up, I feel it is a fait acommpli.
EVEN if the job is there the pay and hols will be slashed... I think.

God knows what I will do..

I sympathise. I have just been put on some meaningless course and weekly signing. This is despite the fact that they know I will be off their hands in a couple of months, when I start a teacher training!

I have just had a bit of a go at one of my friend's daughters on FB moaning about a workman who started drilling at 0830 this morning outside her house...
I just reminded her that it is his job and probably he has a contract to work to and bills to pay...
One of her friends remarked that he was probably going to drink tea for the rest of the day.
Ho hum - Daily Mail gets them early nowadays.

I got a few with that attitude... I was unemployed for about 8 months or so after finishing uni and couldn't even claim job seekers... was just going to get my NI stamps and they STILL made my life miserable and spoke to me like I was some sponging scum who couldn't be bothered to look properly I hate that place and the people who work in it (Newcastle branch is the only one I've had the misfortune to visit) with a passion Out of everyone, most were rude and didn't know how to help me cos my field is too specialist for their tick box system (I'm in IT ferchrissakes!), a couple were ok and could see I was trying and one woman was lovely

Well, it is a weekday, to be expected I suppose! They start early and finish earlier. I can understand being a bit annoyed if its your day off and you were looking forward to a lie in though I was sooooo annoyed when that happened to me one Saturday morning, I was grumping about them workign on a Saturday, but then thought they probably weren't too happy about it either

I sympathise with you all....hope you all get what you deserve and that the scroats that you mentioned in the jobcentres are all included in the cuts...they obviously have very few skills

Don't feel sorry for her SazBomb - she has just finished A levels and moaned all the way thro them.
She is also lucky enough to have a summer job.

I must say that the attitude of most people who work in my jobcentre is a lot better than my experience of signing on in the 80s. Then again, maybe my own attitude has changed.

Having said that, they guy I got today came over as someone who does unspeakable things with chickens in his private life. He took huge and sadistic pleasure in telling me that I was to be sent to a "service provider" and that I'd still have to come in and sign every fortnight.

I shall have to see if the place they're sending me is any better than where I used to go. At least it's not A4e this time!