Tuesday 12 November 2013

Soft/hard outcomes Jobseeking

 I would say the Soft outcomes can be seen to be biased.. Who was asked and by who.. If its for example A4e asking you wouldnt say anything to contradict them on pain of sanction for not "engaging"  Anyone who has been on any of these so called training schemes get demotivated, You are constantly told it is your fault  Being told this constantly and even if you do everything you can possibly do to get a job they say it isnt good enough effectively saying YOU arent good enough.

Forget location, areas of deprivation, Forget areas that have no industry, Forget the recession, You are blamed in the press and by the very state that should be there to protect people, The organisations running these schemes dont see the difference between London and Liverpool.I personally believe that these schemes IF run right can help, but due to maladministration then being held to no account.  For example In my local a4e they said you can apply for this job.. and when i checked (since i cant drive) it would have taken me two hours to get there, but the adviser said but i can drive there easily.. they didnt understand the local transportation problems so started to force people into places that would cost a lot to get too in time and cost.. 

The other part is Getting people off benefits.. That can be read as getting them a job or getting them off benefits by sanctions.  This fear which 90% of all JSA people have isnt helping confidence of people so in essence the sanctions are making people worse We try our best We want to work, yet no matter what the unemployed do its not good enough..This is all Stick no carrot..I am afraid like the proverbs says If you beat a dog with a stick often enough it will fight back.. One of my friends was actually sanctioned for not looking in the local papers..she was actually waiting for a jobs rota as she has a full time job.. So she was punished for having a job  This story amongst others shows that it isnt about helping people into work but a way of punishing people for the "crime" of being unemployed.

But having experienced New deal, Flexible New deal, and Now the Work Programme and each time being let down by them, I have become somewhat of an expert in the schemes. Each time i go in with some confidence, then each time they fail me my confidence plummets, until this after the work programme scheme when it destroyed everything on top of other things like losing my brother in 2009.  

IF these schemes where run with compassion and knowledge of personal circumstances then yes they would work, however they are not, its a blame game for them.  Under the black box approach they could have used compassion but afraid compassion costs and they dont want to spend any money.  The answer I feel is LOCAL run schemes by LOCALS. The ones who know the transport situation, the local job market this would help with the confidence the unemployed have people who KNOW the situation rather than people just DO this or ELSE. But this rarely happens as national and international companies run them, people are just numbers just tick boxes.

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