PRESS HOUNDS GRADUATE WHOSE JOB CENTRE MADE HER WORK IN DISCOUNT STORE FOR FREE
The geology graduate who is suing the government over an unpaid internship she was “forced” to do at Poundland as part of a government scheme has been savaged by the British press and public.
In December, we reported that Cait Reilly — a 22-year-old graduate of Birmingham University — was taking legal action over a two-week internship she was told was “mandatory” if she wanted to keep claiming her Jobseekers’ Allowance payments of £52 per week, in which she was required to sweep the floors and stack shelves. This week – as Cait’s lawyer issued a press release containing an update on her case — the mainstream press jumped on the story and seized the chance to give her and other job-seeking graduates a kicking.
In Graduate Fog’s opinion, some of the editorial written about Cait was vicious — and showed a disturbing attitude towards young people today. The response suggests that a troubling new trend for ‘graduate bashing’ whereby graduates are labelled “entitled” or “arrogant” for daring to complain about the way they are being routinely exploited through unpaid internships, which have become the norm, despite being illegal.
In a piece entitled “A human right not to stack shelves? She’s off her trolley” on Friday, Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir wrote:
“Predictably, Reilly has been photographed in front of her local Poundland wearing the traditional, poor wee me, sad-clown victim face. Cait, I really want to say this to you. Two weeks stacking shelves in Poundland – a breach of your human rights? Grow up.
…It is hardly ten years’ imprisonment without charge in Guantanamo Bay. It is hardly like being incarcerated in a Nazi prisoner of war camp for five long years, never knowing each day if you would live or die, sewing cross-stitch samplers to stop yourself from going insane.”
Nobody said it was, Jan. But unpaid work is illegal in this country, and Cait has every right to complain about it. Then she said:
“I would argue that doing a little unpaid work in return for benefits is not a breach of your human rights, it is actually a bonus. See it as a life lesson – and you might get more out of it than you think.”
Which is it – a “bonus” or a “life lesson”? Come on Jan, at least be consistent. Is this two-week placement a prize — or a punishment? She goes on:
“You might think that a student with barely an NI payment to her name would be happy to put something back into the pot.”
Er, what “pot” is that exactly, Jan? The Poundland pot?
“I would also argue that her stance is deeply insulting to those whose jobs actually do entail sweeping floors and stacking shelves.”
No it’s not. They get paid to do their jobs, Jan. Cait didn’t earn a penny for her work.
“One might hope that any kid walking into a lawyer’s office with this sorry tale would be laughed out of the door.”
“Kid”? Cait is 22. That’s more than old enough to vote. She has the same rights as anybody else in this country. And didn’t you just say she should “grow up”? Yet you’re the one keeping her infantilised by implying she has fewer rights and should shut up, simply because she’s young…
Not content with slating Cait, Jan next turns to her lawyer, the highly-respected Jim Duffy, ofPublic Interest Lawyers:
“What I am really thinking is that Reilly’s lawyer Jim Duffy has much to answer for. A high-profile landmark case such as this might do much to enhance his reputation.”
Er, perhaps Cait’s lawyer has recognised that she has a strong case — and this is an important, interesting and topical area of employment law? He would hardly take the case — which we assume is not being paid for — if he didn’t think Cait had a good chance of winning.
Jan then finishes by pointing out that Cait’s bravery on this issue is likely to put some employers off hiring her — something we suspect Cait has already considered, as it is the same reason why hundreds of thousands of young people do not report illegal unpaid internships every year:
“However, win or lose, it won’t do much for Cait Reilly’s employment chances – as a shelf stacker or a geology-specialising museum boss. Believe me, such a pinched sense of entitlement at this nascent stage of her career will not endear her to many putative employers.”
Well done on underlining the point that Cait — and her fellow unpaid interns — are extremely vulnerable here, Jan. That is all the more reason why Cait’s actions are exceptional and admirable.
Still, perhaps we should not be surprised that Jan Moir lacks the intelligence or sensitivity to get to grips with the details of this case. Let’s not forget that this is the same Daily Mail columnist whose writing promoted 20,000 complaints for the piece “Why there is nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death,” in which she suggested that the singer’s sexual orientation was somehow linked to his death (recorded by corners as by natural causes). The piece earned her the title of Bigot of the Year 2009, as voted by gay rights campaign group Stonewall.
But no, other journalists followed suit. Writing in the Guardian on Saturday, in a piece called “Is all work experience good experience?” Toby Young said:
“More generally, I approve of these sorts of schemes because they denude young people of their sense of entitlement… They can’t just expect a fulfilling career to fall into their laps — and the sooner they realise that, the better off they’ll be.”
He insisted that his own experience of doing unpaid, government-backed work experience as a teen in the 1980s was the making of him. But this was more than 20 years ago, when the world was a very different place, before unpaid labour became an endemic problem that exploits and excludes hundreds of thousands of young people every year. And before unpaid internships became illegal when the minimum wage law was introduced in 1998. Of graduates like Cait, Young wrote:
“The world doesn’t owe them a living.”
True – but Poundland does owe Cait Reilly a wage. And the government owes her an apology for setting up this horrific programme, which effectively legitimises unpaid internships, which are illegal. Not a grey area — illegal. Young even went on to offer Cait some (unsolicited) some careers advice, suggesting that she will need more than her existing qualifications in order to pursue a future as a museum curator:
“Perhaps the two weeks she spent stacking shelves in Poundland will have the same galvanising effect on her as cleaning lavatories did on me and she’ll go back to university and get some additional qualifications.”
Oh, is that what these compulsory, unpaid work placements are for? Pushing graduates back into university to study for yet more expensive qualifications that also won’t lead them to a paid job?
And let’s not forget that this all happened in the same week that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg assured us he was going to put pressure on employers to make sure they pay their interns at least the minimum wage. Yet at the same time his colleague Iain Duncan Smith is telling job centres to arrange unpaid internships? What is going on with these people?
The way we see it, Cait Reilly’s case is extremely important, because it asks some crucial questions that young people deserve answers to:
Why is JSA even being used to help graduates to fund unpaid internships? Cait wants to use her JSA to continue an internship she set up herself at a museum. But why should she need to do this? Why isn’t the museum paying her a wage?
Why is the government instructing job centres to help big companies to break the NMW law but providing them with a steady supply of free labour?
What is the aim of these forced unpaid internships — and is there any evidence that they actually help youth unemployment?
Why are big companies being allowed to gain unlimited unpaid labour, through a scheme backed by the government? How is Cait working for Poundland “putting something back in the pot,” as Jan Moir puts it?
Why are young people being treated as second class citizens?
Graduate Fog is disturbed by the viciousness of the attacks on Cait, who is sticking up for her right to be paid a wage for fair day’s work. Where did this venom come from? Hundreds of thousands of graduates have found that they spent three years doing expensive degree courses on the advice of those they trusted — and have now been by the law, the government and their universities. They have every right to be angry. As Cait’s lawyer Jim Duffy said:
“The Government has created — without Parliamentary authority — a complex array of schemes that allow Job Centres to force people into futile, unpaid labour for weeks or months at a time. By doing so, it is worsening rather than alleviating the cycle of unemployment that is such a significant barrier to addressing the economic crisis.”
We agree 100%. Why are people kicking graduates when they’re down? And why are they so keen to give the government powers to force people to work for nothing, when we already have a minimum wage law that says that is illegal? Graduate Fog wishes Cait Reilly and her lawyer Jim Duffy the very best of luck. We’re right behind you.
*Is the Poundland intern a hero — or a whinger?
Are you impressed that Cait Reilly is standing up for herself — or is she giving graduates a bad name? Was the press reaction to her case fair – or are you worried that ‘graduate bashing’ is becoming the norm in the press?
The comments about this case in the “Guardian” seemed to divide 3:1 – most posters were appreciative of Cait’s courage, cited similar experiences that had happened to them or were outraged by the free ride government was giving to Poundland and similar rich employers. Obviously there were some exceedingly nasty attacks on Cait as well.
Didn’t have time to read the other papers. It’d be interesting if the “Telegraph” also came out in Cait’s favour, wouldn’t it??????????
We absolutely stand behind Cait Reilly suing the government. We are extremely disappointed that the government has let us down, as well as their associated bodies of schools and careers advice who told us to invest in universities to get better jobs. Who invests so much money in a business and expects to get nothing out of it? Universities have started behaving like businesses, yet we have received little return on investment.
On another note, reputed journalist of Birmingham Riots reports and Sangat TV fame, Upinder Randhawa, has tweeted that he is doing a report on our campaign. We are very excited by this and hope other people will back us as well. Please send him your stories if you’ve been told you should work or intern for free (by the way, expenses does not count as pay). You can contact Upinder Randhawa on http://heersaleti.com/contact
Find out more about our mini campaign at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReportToHMRCCampaign Twitter: https://twitter.com/reporttohmrccam and email us at reportohmrc@gmail.com
reporttohmrccampaign@gmail.com * Apologies!
This whole case has really got me worked up.
Its the double standards that get me, “You don’t get something for nothing” when she is expected to give her labour for nothing. Maybe that saying should be changed to “You don’t get something for nothing unless you are an employer,”.
The negative press on graduates in general is really unpleasant. It feels like one minute we were all being encouraged to go to University and that any degree would do, now we are all being blamed for buying into the idea that a degree equals a better job seemingly by the same people who assured us that it would.
It is disturbing how she is being treated. I hate the sense of entitlement accusation. Wanting to be paid the minimum wage for working is now a sense of entitlement? God forbid if we suggest that we also want living wages. That Daily Mail article completely misses the point with the whole menial work is beneath her dignity comment when the real issue is that she and other graduates are being pushed into working for free.
The way she referred to a 22 year old as a “kid” also speaks volumes about how society views younger adults.
CareersPartnershipUK has it right. Its one newspaper (not the general British Press) and its the Daily Mail. Don’t buy it, they’ll go out of business.
I really had a great experience readying this case, you don’t get anything unless you are been employed. The first thing what I did is, I applied for graduate jobs after I graduated.
This has really got me riled. Aside from the excellent points above, I think the following ought to be mentioned:-
1. She was volunteering at a museum to gain experience, which she had to stop doing in order to fulfil the Poundland job. So all those who are complaining that we all have to do some work for free are overlooking that she WAS doing work for free, but which was relevant to the career she wanted to do.
2. That the Poundland job, instead of going to a graduate for whom it was effectively useless, could have been given to someone who WANTS the job. There are thousands of unskilled workers out there who would chew off their right arm to get a role in Poundland. So Cait’s lack of desire to do it isn’t her ‘looking down’ on the role, so much as recognising that there are people for whom it would be far more useful than herself.
3. Something for nothing? Cait, who graduated a year after me, paid approximately £10,000 for her degree. I would be highly surprised if she was unemployed long enough to put her ‘balance’ into negative figures [not to mention the value she will give in tax once she has finished her inevitable illegal free work].
It is shameful that graduates and, to some extent, school leavers are expected to work for extended periods for free in order to qualify for an industry. I have nothing against Internships – we all start somewhere – but the lack of payment is outrageous and makes dangerous assumptions that we are all the sort of people for whom working for free is merely an inconvenience. That Cait was required to go from working for free in a relevant industry to working for free in an irrelevant industry is frankly ridiculous.
It’s the Daily Mail. Why are we surprised? But I’m very, very interested to know if Jan has this same (paid for) attitude towards children, nieces and nephews of her own…
the only thing that worries me about this case is that judges and polticians go together like chalk and cheese if she is suing them in this country she will have a very hard fight on her hands because the polticians will pressure the judges to give the result that they want to suit them.
Employers don’t care that you’ve been sweeping floors or stacking shelves at Poundland. They only care if you’ve got experience that is actually relevant to the position they are offering. As for a sense of entitlement, I would shovel pooh if it would give me the experience I needed to break into the field that I had spent years studying for. If it wasn’t relevant to the career I was trying to forge, then as far as the employer is concerned, the time I spent shovelling only weakens my CV, and makes it look as if I wasn’t as committed to finding a graduate job as the next applicant who has been doing relevant work.
Spoonie : Unless employers actually contribute to the training process, including providing sponsorship and placements to candidates at College and University, they have no contribution to make over whether prospective candidates should be “Ideal”. Once employers start to contribute to College and University Training, then they can make a modest contribution to the debate.
I agree with what Catherina and Laura said above.
Re the entitlement comments directed at Cait Reilly, I’d just like to share something I read on the Texts page of the Metro: “First we get told we need to have some ambition and go to uni so we don’t end up working in McDonald’s, now we’re getting called spoilt for not wanting to work in McDonald’s just because we went to uni.” I think that sums up the situation pretty well.
Im afraid I have to disagree that it is forced labour and that she is unpaid, she is paid through her JSA, if she doesn’t want to do the work then don’t claim JSA
I am a graduate, I was made redundant from first job I had after I graduated in 2008 and I wouldn’t have complained if the country asked me to earn my JSA by working in shops. I spent 6 months hunting for a job and took the first thing that came along, I relocated to london away from family up north to living in greater london so that I could pay my way for myself.
I give my time to unemployment charities aimed at youth unemployment and they support graduates, but graduates must also be willing to show a little spark and determination to enable them to get themselves employed.
We applaud you for giving up your time to charities, but we are talking about Poundland, a multimillion pound company who can well-afford to pay their staff. Ms. Reilly was already doing voluntary work for a museum, and in my opinion, a far-more deserved cause than Poundland, which would incidentally be putting her degree to better use (by the way, the degree is also supported by the government, the same institution taking her away from her chosen path, did that occur to you?). The Job Center took voluntary work away from her and forced her to work in a greedy corporation. She wasn’t a benefits scrounger slacking on the sofa at work, she was contributing to society on an unpaid, voluntary basis.
You work, right? So your taxes are not really going towards Cait, they are going towards Poundland to get free, unskilled labour, to increase their profits. She’s doing exactly the same work that other people are doing, but for under the NMW. In addition, museums will not see Poundland as a ‘spark’ but a lack of dedication on her CV. If any of this makes sense to you, how is any of this right?
If people like you continue to agree with the current ‘system’ (or lack of), not only will we have no wages, you too will be replaced by unpaid work. So all of us will have no money to live on. By supporting these extremely underpaid or unpaid schemes, you are devaluing the market place and saying to people that it is okay for you to be underpaid/unpaid. Ms. Reilly is highly qualified, she is most definitely not under qualified for an unskilled retail job at Poundland, and deserves to be paid the same wages as everyone else. I think you fail to see the bigger issue here.
Jonathan, volunteering for ‘unemployment charities’ is great. But how does anyone benefit from Poundland’s volunteer scheme, other than Poundland themselves? You can whinge about needing to ‘earn’ your JSA, why doesn’t Poundland need to earn their labour? By paying their workers for example, it’s not like they can’t afford it.
Poundland were not giving her an opportunity, they were exploiting her. The Job Centre were not creating a potential job opportunity, they were taking one away from the real economy – you know the one, where people actually get paid for the work they do.
I support Cait 100%
I agree with Kayla, it seems, graduates are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Take any job you can or wait in vain, in the hope that one day you will get into the field of work you studied for. Eventually, there comes a point with your degree, use it or lose it, hence the worry and frustration of graduates these days to want to get to where they need to be, as soon as they can. @Jonathan, no offence, it is much easier to be annoyed at the situation right now, as graduates, like myself are left with a greater debt, the size of a deposit for a house, compared to those who graduated in 2008. Also, telling someone to don’t claim JSA is a bit demeaning, I think you should realise being on JSA is no fun at all, being constantly skint is painful enough, surely. And I believe, isn’t she taking this voluntary work so that eventually she will find a better paid job to have for the rest of her life, which means in the long term she will (fingers crossed) be contributing more money via tax later on. Isn’t that how the benefits system is supposed to work? Personally, I think education is an unqualified good and it should always be accessible to those who are able. Having said that, we are now forced to look at our degree, considering the amount it cost, and sadly wonder, ‘So, how much money is this thing gonna make me?’. Our degree is seen as an investment and an investment is supposed to reap rewards, but the amount it costs to get a degree these days, they are almost seemingly worthless now. So, who do we grumble to? The government for not creating enough jobs or the universities who told us their degree was worth something?
Cait is doing the right thing and showing that something is not right here. It’s also shocking how there has been hardly anything said about the job centre? Has anyone actually been to a job centre? They are absolutely useless when it comes to graduate unemployment. My friend is frowned upon at her job centre as she currently volunteers and the last one I went to told me, if I’ve got a law degree, why I don’t just go work for some solicitors. I told him it wasn’t as simple as that and that I would need an LPC first — he didn’t know what an LPC was. The situation is a mess for graduates these days, high tuition fees, unpaid internships, no jobs, less funding for Master’s courses and a government who I’m probably guessing has been involved in backhand dealing that has allowed this to happen for large corporations. The whole thing is a joke especially that Jan Moir.
The likes of Toby Young and probably many other journos of his generation would have gone to university without having to pay tuition fees and would have got a grant as opposed to the loans that today’s students have to take out. Does put any comments he makes about obligations to do unpaid work to rid oneself of a ‘sense of entitlement’.
@Eowyn Rohan: I agree 100% with the point you’re making. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a single recruiter or businessperson who shares your wider viewpoint on the situation. They don’t care about contributing to prospective candidates’ training. They’ve got a position to fill, they’ll fill it according to their own criteria, and if they can find someone who is all ready to roll without them having to contribute in any way to that person’s training or other suitability, then that’s the person they’ll go for. That’s business, I’m afraid.
Of course, the only evidence which needs to be provided to an employer that a candidate is “committed” to their Career Choice, and which “proves beyond any reasonable doubt” that the candidate can do the job that they have been trained to do, are the Academic Credentials awarded at the end of an Education/Training Process.
On an aside issue, perhaps the saga has demonstrated that Job Centre Plus do not recruit candidates with the relevant competence to assess Job Seekers…. after all, if a candidate possesses moderate common sense, why on earth did the Job Centre Plus clerk presume to believe that any reasonably competent candidate should have to participate within any “Pre-Employment Training” Session, particularly where for a “Mandatory Work Placement” (let alone Unpaid Internship) on the “Work Programme”.
Wanting to work in your desired field is all well and good, but if she was unable to find employment there then she should have adjusted her expectations accordingly and looked for work in another field in the interim rather than claiming from the tax payer just because her dream job hadn’t materialised.
A couple of weeks working in retail would for many expose them to something different, give them options, contacts and experience in another field, and something else for the CV, which may well have helped her find eventual employment somewhere and got her earning and off benefits quicker.
If she wanted to continue the volunteer work on her own terms, don’t claim benefit, fund it like you funded your degree if you think it’ll help you. If you want to claim benefit, accept what’s asked of you in return.
@ Eowyn Rohan,
Of course, the only evidence which needs to be provided to an employer that a candidate is “committed” to their Career Choice, and which “proves beyond any reasonable doubt” that the candidate can do the job that they have been trained to do, are the Academic Credentials awarded at the end of an Education/Training Process.
What utter tosh, typically higher level academic credentials are not awarded for COLLABORATION SKILLS, STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT SKILLS, COMMUNICATION SKILLS, EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY SKILLS, PERFORMANCE/DRIVE SKILLS.
One of the most astounding things about the response towards the action that Cait is taking was the sheer volume of comments on the websites of the major newspapers. The indignation of some people towards someone who gets £52 per week JSA just made me laugh- to think that there seems to be more people who get riled about something like this than about government cuts to education or care for the elderly. I hope Cait is successful in taking this action and that she ignores all the small-minded comments there have been on websites such as the Daily Mail.
Its more astounding to me that people dismiss the volume of opinion as simply hysterical. If a lot of people wish to comment on a subject, its probably something that matters to a lot of people. You may not agree with their opinion, but you must acknowledge that many are finding fault with Cait’s attitude here. It may be “just” £52 a week to you, but to another man that’s a lot of blood, sweat and toil.
Many of us were in the same position as Cait at one point in our lives and worked ourselves into the ground to earn our opportunities and get to where we wanted to be in life. The indignation is seeing someone who thinks she has a right to avoid that while someone else carries her.
If she can’t afford to “volunteer” without claiming benefits, then that’s a real shame and a harsh reality, but a reality none the less. Either take the hand outs and accept that the principle of job seekers is to get you into work (whether or not its your dream career), or get off benefits and go work an evening job to support yourself while you volunteer and get the experience you desire like so many other people have always had to.
@ Clive
Re: “Wanting to work in your desired field is all well and good, but if she was unable to find employment there then she should have adjusted her expectations accordingly and looked for work in another field”. Cait’s made the point that yes, she has already applied for jobs outside her chosen sector. She’d even be prepared to work for Pundland as a shelf-stacker – IF they paid her NMW or better.
As it is, JCP and Poundland took her away from an internship that gave her marketable experience and skills in her chosen sector (AND transferable project management, administrative and communication skills marketable in other employment sectors)in order to give Poundland free labour in a job that takes 30 minutes to learn.
Continuation ….
And please don’t suggest she’ll benefit from learning customer service skills, improving her work ethic etc, all the usual “weasel words” for justifying placements in dreadful jobs. Almost every candidate for any level of employment will bring more social skills and better life management skills than they’ll actually have the opportunity to use in poor quality placements.
In case you think I’m being unfair to the Poundland job, I’m sure I’m not. I worked – conscientiously, pleasantly and without missing a shift – as a shelf-stacker to fund a holiday while I was at school. It’s AMAZING how long it takes for 5 minutes to pass when you are dreadfully, mind-stoppingly bored; and unlike Cait, I could at least look forward to the reward of wages as compensation.
I find it a little distasteful that people feel a job at Poundland is a “dreadful” job and in some way beneath them. They have many employees who enjoy and value their positions.
If you can’t get a job in your chosen field, that means either there is oversupply of your skills, or your sights are set too high and you’re simply not the best candidate (yet) – either way there’s a good reason. Very unfortunate if you’ve just spent 3 years at University studying and I do have a lot of sympathy but its not uncommon, and in no way a curse which is limited simply to recent Graduates.
Be determined, make sacrifices, work your way up from the bottom if you really want that career. If that means getting your hands dirty and working on the shop floor to support your ascendancy, so be it.
The principle of Job Seekers allowance as I see it, is to financially support those who are unable to find employment. It is not there to help you get your dream job, it is not there to pay your way while you “volunteer”, it is there solely to help you live until you are able to support yourself. A retail job stacking shelves may not be what you want to do, but if it pays you a wage then I see no excuse not to take it. I appreciate Poundland were offering experience rather than employment on this occasion – but given she had no success finding jobs in her chosen field, perhaps the Job Centre felt giving her some additional, alternative experience on her CV might go some way towards getting her some sort of job at least. A fair conclusion in my mind.
Personally, I have quite the opposite of your shelf stacking experience. I did the same for a well known warehouse chain while I was at school, during and after University. It was dreadfully hard, long and heavy work, but probably one of the most valuable life experiences I’ve had, and a time I look back on fondly. It was nothing even approaching my chosen career, but it gave me money to support myself and options while I worked towards what I wanted, and yes it did teach me useful skills. I went on to start my own business, out of nothing, and now find myself as an employer who would think twice about employing someone with her reported attitude.
I think you’re misreading what is actually being said here, it is not the fact the job is in poundland, it’s the fact that she wouldn’t be paid an actual wage. And I haven’t known of any of my graduate friends, or myself, refusing work on the grounds it is beneath us to volunteer instead, most are volunteering because they cannot even find unskilled jobs because surprise, surprise as we are viewed as overqualified!
No I appreciate that, and of course there’s all sorts of questions to be asked as to whether any firm should be getting a “free” employee for two weeks but none of us are party to the exact arrangements here.
That being said, I don’t think its entirely unreasonable to expect those able to do something on occasion in order to receive (or continue to receive) benefits, especially if its geared towards helping them become self sufficient and getting them out of the system.
What I’m guessing is that the Job Centre see this as workplace training to make her more employable, so I see no reason why anyone should expect this to be paid since she’s already getting something through her JSA.
Yes I grant you it may not seem to be the most appropriate experience in her specific case, but there must have come a point where they felt she wasn’t getting anywhere with what she wanted to do, and it was time to explore other avenues. Perhaps this was that point? Perhaps they were rather more realistic and taking a more dispassionate view of her immediate opportunities than she could?
Using allowances to bide your time until the perfect job arrives gift wrapped at your feet is not what its there for. I think the priority is always going to be getting someone into some sort of work, not giving them the luxury of being too picky about it.
Clive, How was it “getting her into some sort of work”?! SHE WASN’T PAID. Do your employees work for free?! Cait was volunteering already in a field that would have given her relevant experience to get her into work relevant to her degree. A degree that she spend thousands of pounds funding. I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s acceptable to make anybody stack shelves without getting paid.
I also highly doubt that there are very many people who are pleased to be working stacking shelves, I should imagine there are very few indeed. It is naive to attempt to say that most people stuck in a job like that are happy. To be fair, they’re getting paid more than Cait was…
In my opinion Cait should have a sense of entitlement. Who decided that it was OK for people to take out massive loans to better themselves and then get stuck in dead end jobs?! I do not find it distasteful to suggest that stacking shelves in Poundland is a dreadful job-it is!!
@ Clive
“That being said, I don’t think its entirely unreasonable to expect those able to do something on occasion in order to receive (or continue to receive) benefits, ”
Define “do something” – the whole point of the case that she is bringing (and the thrust of this webpage) is that SHE IS DOING WORK. Legally WORK must be paid for and its entirely reasonable for anyone to expect to be paid the legal minimum for doing work ie. the National Minimum Wage, that is after all what it was set up for.
I understand the tenor of your argument (get them to do something) but SURELY that cannot be work that would otherwise be paid for otherwise we’ll be exploiting them wont we? I don’t do WORK for nothing and neither do I expect anyone else to.
With respect, I didn’t say Poundland was getting her into work, I said that it was an attempt by the Job Centre to give her experience in another area, which would in turn give her more options while looking for employment. I fully appreciate they weren’t proposing to pay her anything over her usual benefits – it was two weeks of experience in a work place, not an open ended “work for nothing” demand.
I would contend that there are plenty who are pleased to be in employment stacking shelves. Admittedly, they may not be much more than content and of course have greater aspirations, but they are pleased to be on the ladder, with a foot in the door and the ability and ambition to earn and work their way on to bigger and better things.
Relevant degree or not, she’s trying to get into an extremely difficult area where jobs are going to be as rare as hen’s teeth as it is, however many qualifications and however much experience you have. Having a degree entitles you to absolutely nothing. She’s evidently had time and not been successful. You can only sit on benefits looking for the perfect job for so long until you’re going to get a nudge towards somewhere where opportunities are less scarce. If you feel you shouldn’t have to deal with that, then I’m afraid you have no business expecting the tax payer at large to support you.
The chances of any Job Centre finding and successfully placing her in the sort of job she evidently had in mind were always going to be low. I’m sure many when growing up would dearly have loved to be astronauts, but even with a relevant degree, do you really think they could justify staying on benefits until NASA came calling? Would you not expect the Job Centre to politely suggest that they might have more luck looking for employment elsewhere and pushing them to get experience in a new field? I appreciate I’m using a rather absurd example, but is it really so far removed?
I’m fairly sure none of our parents, nor their parents felt any entitlement to anything when they left education. Not one of you were forced to study a specific subject or enter a specific career path. Those were your choices, on the basis that you believed it gave you a reasonable stab at improving your chances in life. No one ever offered to guarantee you’d made the right decisions.
Some will be the cream of the crop and land on their feet, some will get lucky, the rest of us, including the Cait’s of this world may have to work harder, seize any and all opportunities, and be more flexible to get what they want. The one thing I can guarantee will stop you achieving all you wished for in life is carrying around that sense of entitlement.
@Derrick
A fair point, and it does sit uneasily with me that Poundland as a private enterprise who are presumably doing rather well in the current climate seem to be benefiting by having the jobless work for them for nothing, and perhaps taking the place of someone who could be employed by them in the more traditional sense.
I am not as cynical as most however, and I would imagine that in return for this arrangement Poundland may be giving something back. Perhaps a commitment to employ X-number of additional people, perhaps they are committing money or resources to assist with external training programs. Who knows? Whether we believe such an arrangement is equitable or indeed fair, is of course another matter entirely and one which I suspect I may be in more agreement with the majority here 😉
@Clive I think you are being really naive and extremely harsh. Knocking people down who are already in a vulnerable position is not the way to go. We are young adults starting out in the world of employment and setbacks are demoralising and they are extremely frustrating. I think we should be celebrating the fact that we have such a young generation who want to work hard, who want to do better and appreciate the quality of life a good education is supposed to bring. Telling somebody that they are not even worth receiving benefits unless they pull their finger out is pretty disgusting. The welfare system is there for a reason, to help those in a vulnerable position!
You can sit there quite easily and spout this nonsense, because you are fine, you are settled. We really don’t know if our degrees will pay off or not when they have cost such a fortune. I think it is greatly understood by my peers that, within this climate, we are lucky to get any job we can find, call centre, bar work or working in a supermarket or a simple admin job. I don’t know about you, but I can’t live on thin air or can barely scrape by on JSA. It seems Cait has already weighed up her options, as the educated grown up she is. I don’t think it is up to you to decide if she has a chance in her chosen career or not, the fact she is volunteering and I presume conversing with those in that sector, then they will have a better idea of informing her of her future job chances and what she needs to do to get there. So, what I think a lot of people are forgetting to see here is a mix up about a sense of entitlement and actually knowing what your self-worth is in the marketplace. She’s only just started out, you sound like a brilliant employer for thinking people should write themselves off so soon.
By the way, have you actually read her article in the Guardian? She does state: ‘Like more than a million young people today, I find living on £53 a week extremely difficult, and would be delighted to find any paid work’.
Find someone else in society to vilify because those of us who have chosen to go to university have done so for many good reasons, and wanting to live off the benefit system, was not one of them.
Is two weeks stacking shelves at poundland really useful experience that could significantly help her get a job? Like people have said its the kind of thing anyone could do after half an hours training. I don’t see why you need previous experience to get a job shelf stacking and I really doubt that this placement will make much difference to her or any graduates CV.
Some readers fail to appreciate that, if employers can replace a Salaried Job (even if it involved Stacking Shelves in Poundshop) with Unpaid Staff, either through an Unpaid Internship or Work Programme Placement for the unemployed, the State is effectively providing a State Subsidy to that employer for each job.
The employer saves themselves about £20K-£30K per annum per job, the State Subsidy of the order of £60K per job per annum, and the State is losing this money which would otherwise be spent by the candidate through local consumption purchases. There is also a problem with Public Sector Debt, and We shouldn’t be so mealy minded in defending employers when they replace Salaried Jobs with a Slave Based Working Culture.
I have no problem with employers working to the good old Nazi Proposition “Arbeit Macht Frei” (ie Work Will Set You Free), and if candidates exhibit behaviours indicative of Stockholm Syndrome in supporting such employers (and relevant schemes), that is their problem.
@Lisa – I apologise if I came across that way, as it was not my intention to belittle anyone’s efforts at all. I know many who graduated recently, and have interviewed many more, and by far the vast majority of you are all incredibly bright, hard working and have fantastic futures ahead of you. Sadly the world you step out into now is a harsh place, with far fewer opportunities than ever before and there’s no escaping that – however much I’d wish things to be different for you all.
I was not for a moment suggesting that people on benefits should “pull their finger out”. I am a great believer in the benefits system being there to support those who are vulnerable and unable to support themselves. I also agree wholeheartedly that £52 is woefully inadequate and I feel for those who have to try and support themselves on such a meagre amount.
My point of contention is that, having looked at her circumstances, what the job centre offered Cait was intended to be beneficial for her, whether she (or indeed you or I) agreed with that assessment or not.
She’d evidently had her time looking and waiting for the jobs she wanted. They didn’t materialise. The system is geared to get people into the jobs available. Like it or not, there are far more jobs available in retail than there are in Geology. It makes sense that sending her for some hands-on experience in a retail environment would make her a lot more attractive to potential retail employers, thus improving her chances of getting one of the more abundant jobs available and off benefits. She may not have any interest in working in retail, but while having to rely on benefits you simply do not have the luxury of that choice.
It is a dreadful shame, but if you want that choice in this day and age unless you have are lucky enough to live off the bank of Mum and Dad you will need to make sacrifices, take the more menial part time jobs and work all the hours life gives you while you job hunt, free from the interference of the state. Its not nice, I know, but neither is it knocking you or doing you down. This is no more than people in all walks of life have had to do throughout history. You are no different I’m afraid.
Cait should not write herself off by any means, but she should get out there and take this opportunity. Yes, its not what she wants to do ultimately, but as that’s not available to her right now this is at least something different for the CV and shows employers she’s willing to try her hand at something different. I would say it would be a worthwhile experience we would all be able to take something from – me included. Its not just the 30 minutes learning how to stack shelves that you all believe.
Pretty much everyone who applies for a job these days has a good degree. Its not the differentiator it once was. Employers look for self motivated, hard working people who are not afraid to get stuck in, and not too proud to turn their hand to anything. By turning this down and making such a fuss, people are already going to question whether she fits into this category. What a way to start your career! A real case of “won’t do”, rather than “can’t do”.
As I said, I do believe the help you all get is woefully inadequate and I don’t think anyone is trying to vilify graduates at all – in fact there’s a hell of a lot of sympathy amongst employers out there. Times are tough, and for the most part, your potential employers are the ones currently lying awake at night worrying about how they’re going to pay the wage bill of the staff they have now, whereas not so long ago we had the ability to take more of a chance on you and create those openings. I sincerely wish we could again, and we’re breaking our backs to do so, because with the skills and dedication you guys bring this country could achieve some amazing things.
I have agreed times are tough and myself and others are still working these menial jobs and I have no complaints because I am getting PAID. I think that is the main argument, you WORK, you GET PAID. I think it comes across as apparent that Cait isn’t just sitting there waiting for the dream job to come along and would happily do other work for an actual income. I’m pretty certain she would have jumped at the chance to have been paid £200 for the week’s work rather than £53. So, that is a clear, gross injustice. This wasn’t even an opportunity, this should never have happened in the first place, as it is wrong as others keep mentioning, it is replacing paid jobs in the economy. Big companies get away with so much these days and we should be applauding her for having the courage to speak up. I think it would also be naive that graduates don’t ‘get it’ and don’t realise degrees have somewhat lost their gold standard and the other various issues at hand because we are the ones having to live with it, read about it and see it happen with ourselves and our peers. The fact of the matter is many graduates right now would take any job and even a job in retail to get the many life experiences you keep reminding us about but they can’t even get those sometimes.
@ Lisa
“We are young adults starting out in the world of employment and setbacks are demoralising and they are extremely frustrating. I think we should be celebrating the fact that we have such a young generation who want to work hard, who want to do better and appreciate the quality of life a good education is supposed to bring. ”
Please dont generalise about an entire generation, I get extremely annoyed at those who claim on the one hand graduates are highly motivated, intelligent, qualified up to the hilt and then on the other hand are victims and don’t possess the wherewithal to get themselves out of a hole. We’ve all been there and NO we didn’t all feel that we were entitled to a job.
I’m sorry that graduates expectations are too high – maybe society is over promising to them?
It might be a sweeping statement and overgeneralisation but the sentiments are there. I would argue this is how a lot of well qualified graduates feel, especially when we can’t even expect these days to be able to find an entry level job or anything just to keep us doing until we get to where we want to be.
What I’m taking from this is that the real argument here is less to do with Cait’s reaction to her situation, but more to do with people’s moral stance towards the provisions of the Jobseekers Act, in particular those of Section 17 which give the legal basis for the various “work for your benefits”-schemes.
As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I fully endorse the general thrust of the Act and consider them to be a worthwhile thing.
However, and it is a big however, the anecdotal evidence does point to abuses of the system by businesses and I think, rightly, this is where people’s anger should be directed.
People have speculated (and I will stress I can find no hard and fast evidence of this) that certain retailers are making use of this scheme in order to take on short term labour so as to avoid having to employ paid individuals.
This has never has been the intention of the Act. The intention is to provide those on JSA with experience and routes into employment. This is why it is not paid. It is supposed to be useful training and experience NOT work in the more traditional sense.
Playing devil’s advocate, personally I have to say that having someone come from the Job Centre to me for 2 weeks would not be of much use to me at all from a selfish point of view. I’d have to spend mine or my staff’s time training them and getting them up to speed and into the routine. At which point 2 weeks would have come around and I’d have lost them. So I suspect most employers in this scheme are participating with good intentions, and are truly investing their own time and resources into trying to provide job seekers with training and useful, hands on experience in their workplaces. This should be applauded.
If as it sounds, there are a few business who are abusing the system, then you are right to draw this to people’s attention and I would fully agree something should be done.
That being said, I do not for a moment believe Cait can possibly know of Poundland’s intentions, good or bad, though. It seems to many that she was protesting as she just didn’t fancy the “work for your benefits”-scheme she was placed on.
If you have a moral issue with Section 17A, by all means make it to the Government and lets get the law changed so it has more checks and balances to prevent abuse. I and many others would support you. But please don’t hold Cait up as some kind of hero here. I don’t believe she is anything of the sort. If she’d gone into the scheme and came out the other end with the same argument, people would have a very different opinion.
I don’t think this is all as it seems. As sad as it is, the vulnerable and downtrodden very rarely have access to good legal counsel and the ear of the hooligans from Wapping…
I (slightly!) agree with Clive – in that I don’t think JSA should be used to support graduates doing endless internships, in competitive fields that they may have a very slim chance of ever securing paid work in.
I have two reasons for this. The first is ideological – I don’t think the taxpayer (who may well be doing a job they don’t particularly enjoy) should have to pick up the bill for funding someone else’s dreams, which may be unrealistic (not saying Cait’s are particularly, but..). That’s not what the welfare system was set up for. It’s not sustainable and it’s not fair on those who are working (especially if they’re doing jobs they don’t particularly enjoy themselves).
The second is that I think that if EMPLOYERS were paying their interns, we wouldn’t even need to be having this discussion about whether they should get government help in the form of JSA. In other words, has anybody asked why the MUSEUM Cait was working at previously wasn’t paying her for her work?
For me, the two points are inter-related. The question of what is right / fair to Cait is clouded by the fact that the Govt is not prepared to enforce the NMW law so that the museum has to pay her. Given that that is the case, she will have to claim JSA while she is there. (What else is she supposed to live on?)
Given that they refuse to enforce the NMW law so that employers (ie the museum) have to pay their interns, does that slightly shift the responsibility on to them to make sure she can at least eat, by awarding her JSA? Either that, or she gives up completely and gets another paid job, if she can find one. But NOT a government-arranged UNpaid job.
On the matter of whether working in Poundland is good or bad, I think people can be glad they have a job, without being over the moon that it’s at Poundland (although I’m sure there are worse places to work!)… Also, I suspect that people who work in Poundland would prefer that their children don’t end up there, so they will be encouraging them to go to university! And so it goes on…
Article from blog (www.imogen-massey.blogspot.com)’Living the graduate dream’
‘The call centre wants me back! Living the graduate dream!’ A text from a friend who recently began a long stint at a call centre in order to earn some money. She’s aware that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’, that ‘the world doesn’t owe you anything’, that it’s ‘1% inspiration, 99% perspiration’. How many more clichés are there to apply to her situation? Should she simply ‘put up and shut up’, be thankful she’s got a job at all and keep her head down?
No, she bloody well should not. Why should thousands of graduates like her be expected to keep quiet and humbly thank their parents’ generation for any ‘opportunity’ that comes their way? Why do people like Jan Moir, one-time winner of Bigot of the Year, get away with voicing such poisonous, ignorant opinions? Why is it suddenly OK to criticise and demean the young adults who were once heralded as the ones who would reach dizzying heights of success? Weren’t we encouraged to work hard; to get a degree and led to believe that in doing so we would own the saying ‘the world is your oyster’?
To anyone yet to read Jan Moir’s opinion piece, please do. Amongst her many ‘arguments’ is the notion that graduates should be happy to work for free in order to qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance as they’ve never contributed to society. How short-sighted. By going to university, by taking out potentially crippling loans and maxing out your overdraft you’re doing so with the idea that upon graduation you can secure a good job and thus start contributing to society for the long-term. Funnily enough the main attraction of university has always been advertised as career-based, so to suggest that graduates have taken advantage of the state for three years while they seemingly doss about having the time of their lives, all at the tax payer’s expense, is just ludicrous. What planet is Moir living on? Most students have to work to support themselves throughout their degree anyway; surviving on just a student loan is not a possibility for the majority.
Her criticism of Cait Reilly seems to be based on the idea that graduates should indeed ‘put up and shut up’, suggesting that having to sacrifice a relevant internship in order to work for free at Poundland is ‘just life’. Again, how short-shorted. Rather than encouraging someone to gain experience within the field they are trying to crack into, which would surely be a long-term investment, it would be better for her to give up her career ambition and work in retail. Even though retail has nothing to do with her degree or with her chosen career path. To suggest that Cait’s objections are insulting to those who work in such jobs out of necessity is also ridiculous. Should we no longer encourage anyone to aim high for fear of being labelled a snob? What was the point in furthering her education if only to then be criticised for wanting to achieve a job within her desired profession? Don’t look too far above your station, missy, or you’ll cause people offence. So much for social mobility. Why should aiming high be regarded as a negative? Do we really want it to become the norm for graduates to be forced into working in a job that relates in no way to their career ambition or level of skills? How will we sell university to the younger generation if that’s the model they have to aspire to?
I highly doubt that if Jan Moir suddenly found herself in her local job centre she’d be happy being ordered to work for free at Poundland to secure her Jobseeker’s Allowance. It’s hardly a substantial amount of money, more the bare minimum; aside from the fact that benefits are there to support people, rather than being something to threaten people with. Does she think that people who have worked hard only to find themselves being made redundant later in life should ‘put up and shut up’ with being offered a job stacking shelves in a supermarket? Should they, like graduates, be told ‘the world doesn’t owe you anything?’ Isn’t that the kind of thing that’s been said throughout history to keep people in their place, along with the ‘you’ll be rewarded in Heaven’ line?
Our parents’ generation do not seem to understand what it is like to be a graduate in the twenty-first century, to feel as if we are taking the brunt of mistakes made by past generations and to then be publicly blamed for expecting better for ourselves. They do not seem to understand what it is like to go through an education system which bases itself on the principle that education guarantees success in life for those who work hard enough; that taking out student loans and piling up debts is a good investment. They do not seem to understand what it is like to graduate and to find yourself working in a cafe, in a supermarket, in a call centre, as a teaching assistant, barely earning the minimum wage in some cases, barely being able to afford necessities such as travel and food, let alone even dreaming of saving for a deposit on a house. To be trapped in a never-ending adolescence, trapped in jobs which saw us through university, ‘student jobs’ which have now become graduate jobs. We all criticised the government for failing to raise the loan repayment threshold from £15,000 in line with inflation. Of course we’ll be earning over £15,000 upon graduating, we thought; most graduate jobs have a starting salary of around £21,000. Otherwise, what was the point in getting a degree? Of course we would be earning enough each month to start making repayments. A lot of graduates six, twelve, eighteen months after graduating, still aren’t earning above £15,000. The feeling of life as being on hold, frozen, stuck for our generation is a feeling that could end up slowly demotivating, eroding at young people’s sense of worth, purpose and ability. A feeling of ‘what’s the point?; of maybe not having a better life than our parents; of wanting to give up, of thinking that maybe it would be better to simply ‘put up and shut up’after all. This is a dangerous feeling, one which could cause serious damage to our society. Instead of criticising and stigmatising graduates, older generations should be supporting them, investing in a generation who truly feel frightened about the future.
People like Jan Moir can easily criticise and fire off their poisonous opinions safe in the knowledge that they didn’t have to experience this kind of fear. How easy it is to victimise in order to deflect attention away from the real villains in society. Perhaps it stems from a hidden guilt. Perhaps some people just like to bully. To round off with one final cliché: life seems less the graduate dream we were promised and more the never-ending graduate nightmare.
@ Imogen Massey
I agree with your post. Sadly, though, the answer to your rhetorical question “Does [Moir]think that people who have worked hard only to find themselves being made redundant later in life should ‘put up and shut up’ with being offered a job stacking shelves in a supermarket?” is that the government CERTAINLY thinks that way. Cases have been quoted in the press of retail MANAGERS, Chartered Engineers, senior IT people etc with many years of successful work behind them being forced onto inappropriate “work experience” of this type by JobCentrePlus.
It happens, I think, because JobCentrePlus staff have themselves been given counter-productive work targets to meet, the UK is losing “high end” jobs and DWP are particularly badly equipped to help qualified people find jobs.
Imogen,
An interesting read, and to address your final point, yes, I think perhaps there is a degree of guilt coming from our parents generation, although I don’t think this is what drives Jan and her ilk.
The two things which I do disagree with though are the idea of people expecting you to “put up and shut up”, and this “graduate dream”.
Lets start with the dream. There were never any promises when you went to University, only the prospect that if you went, you’d be better educated, leave possibly more rounded individuals, and this in turn *MIGHT* give you access to better jobs later in life, and by connection perhaps a better standard of living ultimately. Your blog seems to suggest you feel this was your entitlement for having gone. It was not. As you say, it was a dream. It was never a graduate guarentee.
Next the idea of having to “put up and shut up”? That, and the idea that you are in some way being demeaned? I can’t imagine anyone, not least your parents wanting to stifle your ambition, your dreams, and your desire to work hard and better yourselves, but they appreciate that our present situation dictates that you can now no longer immediately expect to get the job you were educated for. For that matter, neither can they. The job situation at the moment sucks, we all know it, but it is what it is. No one’s asking you to stack shelves for the rest of your livfe or immediately stop looking at other options. You don’t have to “put up and shut up”, but you do need to get out there and make the best of it. You still have the ability to drag yourself up in the world even if you’re now starting lower down the chain. Surely that’s the best way to demonstrate the collective determinations University instilled in you?
The vast majority do recognise this. The reason Cait got a reaction is because she came across primarily as someone who would only do something on her terms while similtaniously relying on the state. Your assertation that we are stopping her from aiming high is bogus. Aiming high and doing what is nessacary not to have to rely on the state are not mutually exclusive. Its called setting your sights accordingly, working hard and being patient.
I think the real difference between us and our parents is that we all grew up at a time when jobs were plentiful, the economy was booming, we had long since seen off the effects of two world wars, and as a result a lot of us saw our parents be reasonably successful in life. I’m afraid it possibly led us all to believe this is the way things always were and gave us false expectations. Maybe our parents and successive Governments were responsible in part for breeding those expectations, so yes, there probably is some guilt.
You write form a rather utopian view point, saying having to make the best of things is wildly “short-sighted”, I would argue its simply realism. Of course it would be better for you to be able to do the jobs you were educated to do, but the bad news is that those jobs are no longer there. So what alternative do you propose?
I dare say you probably feel your parents have a rather different viewpoint because unlike our generation, most saw their own parents struggle and didn’t themselves have the chance of University educations in many cases. One of my own for instance did not have the option of remaining in full time education past GCSE/O-level for instance. This meant they were only too familiar with having to work their way up from the very bottom and were not scared to do so. It was this ethic that in part which resulted in many of our generation having the options we have.
You went to University to better yourselves. You’ve made it through and have come out fantastic, well educated individuals. You University fulfilled its role. Its devastating to be confronted with the realisation that things aren’t quite the same now as when you went in, or quite what you expected. Irrespective, your formal education is over. It is now your responsibility to become financially independent any which way you can.
@CareersPartnershipUK
“It happens, I think, because JobCentrePlus staff have themselves been given counter-productive work targets to meet, the UK is losing “high end” jobs and DWP are particularly badly equipped to help qualified people find jobs.”
I think you are absolutely spot on there. There are huge numbers of businesses, especially in more specialised disciplines, that would never even consider approaching a Job Centre with their vacancies.
This is in part an awareness thing, and partly having been burnt in the past. We’ve tried to recruit through Job Centres before with little success. Its been a shambles trying to deal with them. There’s little understanding of candidates’ real skills, and those which are sent are often unsuitable. Those who do turn up have often never been given any guidance with CV writing, or interview technique. In many cases they arrive with little idea about the job they’re applying for, or any real interest in securing it.
Compare this to what both the employer and employee get from a good, more traditional recruiter. Whether or not I have vacancies they will be hounding me day and night with carefully selected candidates who they can tell me about in detail, will sing their praises, and send those suitable to us well presented, and chomping at the bit to get the job.
If the Job Centre’s operated rather more like professional recruiters I’m sure they would be significantly more successful in placing people.
As it stands its currently one big conveyor belt. Jobs + People in at one end, people shoehorned into unsuitable jobs out of the other as quickly as possible.
Sadly, the High Street is awash with “Traditional Recruitment Agencies”, where Telesales Clerks profess to be something other than they are not, some of whom attribute the baloneous title of “Consultant” to themselves – in much the same way as a Lavatory Attendant may call themselves a “Sanitation Engineer”.
Of course, the position within business is not helped either, on the one hand, by recruiting staff working to the “Peter Principle” (ie within any single organisation, at least one person will be promoted on the basis of their incompetence – invariably in the Human Resources Department), and on the other, where the business makes no tangible contribution to the training of either its existing staff, or prospective staff. Of course, in such circumstances, the organisation will be unlikely to establish a position as a “Sustainable Business”, cannot seriously offer any contribution towards the “Training Debate”, and the type of organisation which should be avoided at all costs by any graduate applicant.
In any event, unless employers offer a commitment towards training (including providing placements and sponsorship to candidates at College/University), they don’t represent any form of solution, and are simply part of the problem.
@ Eowyn
“In any event, unless employers offer a commitment towards training (including providing placements and sponsorship to candidates at College/University), they don’t represent any form of solution, and are simply part of the problem.”
Yes but the employers have to recruit people with the propensity to grow via training in the first. Place, sadly that’s not taught by the universities, all they teach are academic qualifications not teamworking, collaboration, customer focus, performance/drive skills.
As a student, I don’t have a problem with the idea that people should be made to work for their benefits.
But why on earth not deploy jobseekers to schemes run by the government/nhs or local authorities? My local council runs museums and heritage sites, they could volunteer at centres like children’s centres, or in clean-up/area improvement schemes. And so on and so on. They could be doing something for both themselves AND the state.
I think the problem everyone has with the way things work at the moment is that private companies are benefiting from free (essentially state-subsidised labour).
IN FACT, if we really want people to work in private companies for work experience, why not the ones we had to buy out?
Of course, all of this would be greatly facilitated by a simplification of the criminal records bureau disclosure process. I recommend Chip and Pin.
“Like it or not, there are far more jobs available in retail than there are in Geology” The thing is that this statement is NOT TRUE. The oil and mining industries are crying out for Geology graduates. Due to the OPEC price war of 1999-2000 the average age of the geoscience professional in the oil industry is > 50. There is a massive skills gap because of mass redundancies in the 80s and 90s. It is not plausible that having graduated over a year and a half ago this woman cannot get a job. The PESGB (PS PESGB Student Membership is £20) publish a directory every year listing every business in the sector and runs a bi-annual industry fair at Earl’s Court where graduates can sell themselves to the industry… in my view either the girl is the worst interviewee or CV writer in the history of Britain or she is just lazy. You dont need a good degree to get in. I’ve even heard it said there are 2 jobs for every graduate. I’m not a fan of IDS (a man who probably thinks the Beveridge Report is something to do with the soft drinks industry but when you are crying out for skilled labour and this woman gives the false impression to young people that there are no jobs going to graduates in this sector when there are tonnes it’s enoguh tp make Clement Attlee vomit in his grave. Poundland is too good for the likes of Cait Reilly she should be put on the treadmill or made to work the crank.