OSBORNE’S PLANS SOLVE NOTHING – AND COULD MAKE THINGS WORSE, SAYS GRADUATE FOG
The Chancellor George Osborne has shown himself to be woefully out-of-touch with the reality of life for unemployed graduates.
In the new Budget announced yesterday, he announced a new package of measures supposedly designed to reduce soaring youth unemployment in the UK. His brilliant idea for helping young people into work? More unpaid work experience.
With a fanfare of trumpets, Osborne said he planned to increase five-fold the number of work experience placements on offer, from 20,000 to 100,000 over the next two years.
But – since this is an extension of an existing scheme – it seems likely that these will be unpaid, eight-week placements. Worse still, the are only open to those between 18 and 21 years old, so those who have taken a gap year or just completed a four-year course will not be eligible to apply.
The good news is that those who do the placements have been assured that they will still be able to claim benefits including Jobseekers’ Allowance (Under the current system, being unable to look for paid work because you’re doing an unpaid internship means you forfeit JSA). Apparently, this is what passes for government-subsidised work experience. You still don’t get paid for your work, but at least you don’t get your meagre benefits snatched off you.
Graduate Fog is seriously unimpressed. When will these people learn that unpaid work experience placements, internships, whatever you choose to call them – are not a solution to anything. These ‘opportunities’ are no longer leading to entry level jobs, they are replacing entry level jobs.
My fear is that these placements could actually end up making things worse for graduates. If an employer who is thinking about taking on a graduate for a paid, entry-level job but then discovers that they could join this government scheme instead and get somebody for free for eight weeks (and then somebody else after that), what possible incentive do they have for taking on a graduate on a paid, permanent basis? My other fear is the message this sends to those already exploiting young workers through unpaid internships. Isn’t Osborne is effectively condoning the practice of exploiting young people by putting them in to unpaid work on the promise that it’s ‘good experience’? We have already seen how many young people’s ideas about the value of their work are becoming dangerously distorted. (Have you heard of ‘Stockholm Syndrome interns’?)
If the Coalition really wants to help graduates, they should start start by clamping down on all the big companies that use unpaid interns – when they can well afford to pay them at least the National Minimum Wage. Then they should start on the small and medium sized companies and the public sector – before finally stamping out this unfair and unethical practice within non-profit organisations and charities.
Graduates don’t need more unpaid experience. It’s time to give you what they deserve – permanent graduate-level jobs which pay you a salary for your work.
It seems to me that these placements are intentionally placed to dodge the graduate problem by being only open to 18-21 year olds, as most people will graduate uni either at 21 or close to it. This is fair enough given that the government is much more concerned about its post secondary NEETs rather than graduates, a justifiable position as although graduates are in a sorry position, the NEET problem is arguably worse, it is just that it is not as vocal as the graduate one.
The numbers are also a bit worrying, 100,000 is VERY ambitions, and I have a thousand questions about how this will be implemented, most notably: will there be a balanced selection of fields for these work experiences? Will they be geographically targeted in relation to youth unemployment?
– I think before we go and start complaining about this being another form of free labor we have to wait to see what actually happens.
@Nick
I agree that it will be interesting to see what happens and how this is implemented etc. I also have a lot of questions! But I also do think it is valid to raise concerns at this stage. Do others agree or have I got on my high horse before time??
I suppose I am beginning to have habitually low expectations of this Coalition, as I genuinely can’t remember when they last (or ever?) announced anything that I felt was good news for Graduate Fog’s community! I’ve honestly never before seen myself as a particularly ‘political’ person (my background is writing for women’s mags!) and Graduate Fog is not for or against any political party (lord knows Labour made their own fair share of mistakes too) – it is just Pro-unemployed graduates.
My point is that perhaps I started in a neutral political state, but am perhaps becoming predisposed to skepticism – but if I am then I could argue that it is justified, given what we’ve seen so far from this lot… Internship auctions, anyone?! ; )
When I heard the budget announcement I thought, ‘oh great something for young people’, and then I remembered I was 25.
These work programmes are problematic. I felt divided over FJF. It was exploited by charities who had no intention of taking on permanent staff (who would turn down the chance of a free employee). Yet I know at the same time people on these placements were just happy to be in work, albeit temporarily.
In many cases the 2 months work may give the young people an uplifting routine. That’s good for them. But once again businesses/charities will exploit the free labour.
I don’t think most people need the experience; they need the opportunities available in more prosperous times. Work programmes make out as if young people are useless = that’s why they haven’t got jobs.
@Tanya I’ve certainly been politicised by this government. I’ve never felt more entrepreneurial. When you can’t get a job you have to make one
Hi there,
Sorry peeps, this is what Tory government is all about. I’m a graduate like yourselves, but I graduated in 1984 – a long time ago, but at a time when the Tories were doing exactly what they’re doing now: making the young pay for the mistakes of the rich and influential.
They don’t give a fuck about you, and where their offspring or their friends’ kids are involved, they’ll ship that internship to them because it’s who you know, not what you know.
I saw all of this in the 80’s as a young graduate, and, it saddens me to say, those fuckers are as malign now as they were then. You want a degree? We’ll take £30,000 out of you straight off. You want a job? Make sure you’ve got friends in positions of power.
Social mobility in the UK? RIP.
Sorry if this offends anyone, but the truth often hurts. Especially if you’ve been duped by the Tories and their Lib Dem slaves.
And Paid Internship Schemes across the country like the one I work for, which offer graduates tax-free training allowances for graduate level internship placements of up to 12 weeks, have all had the funding cut, full stop. and are due to end at the end of this month!
@Simon Carter
I agree – it seems very clear to me that all these changes (which include the allowed spread of unpaid internships) hit the poorest young people the hardest. This is why I worry so much about the Coalition – because I just think they don’t have enough day-to-day contact with the people who are struggling the most. And I can’t shake the feeling that they think all poor people are lazy… There seems to be no appreciation of just how much harder it is to start your career in the professions if you don’t come from that sort of background, for all sorts of reasons.
@joddle
That’s what I think too. Giving people endless experience is pointless if there are no jobs for them to do once they’ve got it! And what’s happening is that grads feel like the goal posts keep moving, because so many of their peers are doing exactly the same as them, amassing endless unpaid experience… They hear they’ll need 3 months’ experience to be considered for a paid role, then it’s 6, then it’s 9, then it’s 12… Every time they look up, the end point has been move further away.
@Dehnus
You’re right – what is happening is extremely sneaky. Unpaid work experience / internships are being dressed up as an ‘opportunity’, when in fact I am really concerned that expanding these schemes (and thereby condoning the practice of unpaid labour) could actually reduce the number of paid entry level roles around, which is certainly bad news for graduates. In this scenario, the only people who gain are the employers, who continue to get something for nothing, while young people (already in massive debt) continue to subsidise their businesses.. How is this reasonable??
Same old Tories, same old slave-state policies, and as for Blair’s New Labour? Just Tories in a different coat, perhaps Milliband will be better, but I doubt it….
This is plain sick. This is exploitation. No, I’ll put it another way: Slavery is Back. Unpaid work is slave labour. End of story, case closed.
I will never work for nothing. No money, no work. I have bills to pay, darn it! I’m an adult, and I pay my way in life. And as for voluntary work: I detest this idea that people help out for charity in order to boost their CVs. That is very cynical. People should do charity work out of a personal desire to help people in need. Charity work should remain a genuine and private decision.