EMPLOYMENT MINISTER CLAIMS SCHEME’S CRITICS ‘JUST DON’T GET IT’
Chris Grayling, the employment minister who came under fire earlier this year for the Workfare scheme which saw thousands of young jobseekers forced to work in supermarkets for no wage, has again defended the programme. He claimed that those who criticised it “just don’t get it”, should “take a long hard look at themselves” and understand that “in today’s world, things don’t come on a plate.”
In a speech made on Thursday at the Policy Exchange in London, Grayling slammed what he called the “Polly Toynbee left,” who – like the Guardian columnist Toynbee – have opposed his controversial work experience programme. He also accused his critics of being out of touch with the current economic climate and in danger of putting a huge number of young people at risk. Grayling — thought to be a likely contender for a cabinet post in the next re-shuffle – said:
“I’m afraid that too many people still just don’t get it. Like the ‘Polly Toynbee Left’ who rail with outrage against the idea of a young unemployed person being offered the chance to do a month’s work experience with Airbus, British Telecom, UK Mail or Tesco.
“Slave labour they call it. Well that’s just insulting to some great companies who are helping young people get a job, not to mention the young people benefiting from placements by picking up the valuable skills and experience they need to get a leg up into the world of work.
“They just don’t understand that in today’s world, things don’t come on a plate. That government can’t just create opportunity for all. That people have to go the extra mile if they want to succeed.
“It’s time for those who have criticised work experience to take a long hard look at themselves. Work experience isn’t about exploiting young people — it’s about showing them what life is like in a workplace.”
Grayling also claimed that young unemployed people who participated in government work experience schemes were 20% more likely to find work and 16% more likely to be off benefits 21 weeks later than unemployed young people not on the programme. But Toynbee – writing in yesterday’s Guardian – suggested that the figures were “not quite a lie, but profoundly deceptive” and that the true figure was closer to 6%. She also made the point that many of those counted as ‘off benefits’ had vanished, which did not necessarily mean they had found jobs. She also said:
“Grayling defended his work experience programme which was criticised by me and many others when it emerged that companies like Tesco were using large numbers of the young unemployed to stack shelves for free, without training or a job offer, and that anyone dropping out could lose benefits.
“Grayling labelled critics of this programme ‘job snobs’, as if we were deriding the work itself. But the protest was against large companies using a battalion of free labour as a substitute for employing people fairly on the minimum wage.”
At Graduate Fog, we think it is not Grayling’s critics who ‘don’t get it’ – but the employment minister himself. Unpaid work may seem harmless enough – helpful, even – in the short-term. But far from being a solution to youth unemployment, we have seen (from the spread of privately-arranged unpaid internships) that in the long-term unpaid work only serves to cheapen young people’s labour, move the goalposts further away from them and pull down wages for everybody. It is crystal clear to us that in time the same thing will happen with government-backed unpaid work schemes. Unpaid work is not a miracle cure for youth unemployment – it is already a big part of the problem.
The fact that unpaid work forms such a large part or the government’s plan to solve youth unemployment betrays these politicians’ terrifying lack of understanding of the problems facing out of work young people today – and what is really going on out there.
Here’s an idea – why doesn’t the government instead start putting pressure on companies to pay their young employees a fair wage? One that they can actually live on, without having to rely on the state – or their parents – for hand-outs? It is Mr Grayling – not his critics – who needs to take a long, hard look at himself.
“Work experience isn’t about exploiting young people — it’s about showing them what life is like in a workplace.”
From my experience ‘in a workplace’, this ALSO involved receiving a wage therefore avoiding the exploitation part. He also speaks as if young people are buffoons and don’t have some sort of idea from school, probably work experience during their school life and from their parents what it is to have a job. We are screwed with this Government, another out of touch comment from those that have, telling the have-nots what to do…
“They just don’t understand that in today’s world,… government can’t just create opportunity for all”.
Most of us do think government’s responsible for managing the economy and social policy to “create opportunity for all”. If government doesn’t look after all our interests, how dare they expect us to pay their salaries?
The mistakes made by this government are largely responsible for the huge rise in unemployment over the last year. Their policies squeezed demand out of the economy, they axed many of the schemes that were helping to get people into work and they’ve done absolutely nothing themselves to create longterm, sustainable growth. When they can do so much harm by adopting policies which don’t work, it’s illogical for Grayling to argue government’s a helpless victim of market forces.
Since when do you need valuable skills and experience to work in a supermarket? People still in school have these jobs. I think a lot of the problem is that employers have ridiculous demands for experience for even the most basic jobs.
That and that there aren’t enough proper jobs out there anyway. A bit of unpaid work experience wont change that.
“That and that there aren’t enough proper jobs out there anyway. A bit of unpaid work experience wont change that.”
This article pretty much sums it up: http://www.newstatesman.com/employment/2012/04/work-experience-works
It really doesn’t matter how many people they try and “encourage” into work through these ridiculous schemes, there still aren’t enough jobs to go around. All they’re doing is redistributing unemployment.
I’m so angry that he’s taken the line that young people need to be forced to work for free to improve their chances in life. They’ve cut all of the schemes which actually would have helped us and now it’s OUR fault we’re unemployed?
In all seriousness, it is difficult to take Polly Toynbee’s complicity in deceit seriously given that in 1997 she contributed to the Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/the-tories-were-right-workfare-really-works-1280874.html
“The Tories were right: workfare really works”
and provided unambigious support for Labour throughout the 1997-2010 when Labour introduced the insidious New Deal and Flexible New Deal, a payment up front scheme (unlike the Payment By Results Work Programme). Unfortunately, whereas the scheme established Workfare, the only positive outcome was to make A4E and Working Links richer, particularly Emma Harrison of A4E who raked in reported bonus payments of £8.4 Million where she further charged A4E a reported £20 Million for the use of facilities within her Family Mansion.
Right, because obviously young people are all feckless idiots who don’t know how to get dressed in the morning, so learning to stack shelves is going to be so life-changing for us. Of course. It’s actually really offensive that Chris Grayling is still going on about this and pandering to the Daily Fail readers as if there was any truth to any of these ridiculous claims. Like others have said, there are way more job-seekers than jobs – that’s the problem, not that not enough young people have experience sweeping up.
Since our economy is the way it is, it’s hardly surprising that companies are cutting costs and training new employees is where a lot of them have (IMHO completely misguidedly) decided to cut corners. Hence stricter requirements for applicants. But I doubt having experience in something completely menial that a monkey could do isn’t exactly going to give many people a competitive edge. The government could probably do something actually effective like maybe offer small and medium employers tax incentives for hiring graduates/school-leavers instead of shipping people off to Tesco, but that might actually require some intellectual effort on the part of Chris Grayling that he’s clearly not capable of. Much easier to pretend like only young people magically learn new skills from the jobs they have and that’s enough to sustain them and pay their rent.
This lazy use of the word ” work experience” bothers me.
I know what work experience I did. It involved work shadowing, not actually doing any work but observing what said work involves. Asking questions, finding out what’s required in a profession, doing some of the minor tasks under supervision
When I have been required to work independently, whether in a temp job or industrial placement, I was paid. Anything that involves the individual doing any of the work should be paid. What’s not to get?
Chris Grayling just doesn’t get it.
He needs to take a long hard look at himself.
If you want staff, you have to pay for them. Human labour doesn’t just come handed to you on a plate.