YOU’RE NOT ALONE – 1.4 MILLION SUFFER IN “PART-TIME, LOW-PAY BRITAIN”
Concerns have been raised that yesterday’s apparent good news about UK unemployment is in fact masking a crisis that has seen over a million people forced to take part-time work because they can’t find a full-time job.
Employment minister Chris Grayling declared it “welcome news” that unemployment had fallen by 45,000 to 2.6million in the three months leading to March 2012 – and the number of people in work increased by 105,000 to almost 30 million. But number-crunchers pointed out that this second figure is entirely due to a rise in part-time workers – many of whom are not doing it by choice.
Almost eight million people are now in a part-time job, the highest since records began in 1992, while those working part-time because they cannot find full-time work increased by 73,000 to a record high of 1.4 million. Self-employment has also reached a record figure of 4.1 million, up by 89,000 since the previous quarter.
David Cameron said he accepted that the new figures should be treated with caution, saying:
“We are not remotely complacent about this because although there is good news about youth unemployment and the claimant count coming down, there is still too many people in part-time work who want full-time work, and also we still have the challenge of tackling long-term unemployment.”
…but Unite general secretary Len McCluskey blasted the government for creating a “part-time, low-pay Britain”:
“The Chancellor has created a part-time, low-pay Britain with his austerity programme – a political path that is increasingly being rejected by other European countries, France being the most prominent example.”
And TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said:
“The falling number of full-time jobs and the 6% fall in real wages over the last two years means that people are having to make huge salary sacrifices and put their careers on hold just to stay in work.”
Graduate Fog is hearing growing anecdotal evidence of graduates taking whatever work they can find – often several part-time jobs – to try and cobble together something resembling a half-decent monthly wage. Many of you are being forced to put your career plans on ice indefinitely while you try and find work that will help you pay the rent. We have also not forgotten that the many graduates working as unpaid (or very low-paid) interns will also not be counted as unemployed, as they cannot claim jobseekers’ allowance. So how accurate is the picture painted by this new batch of statistics?
*ARE YOU WORKING PART-TIME BECAUSE YOU CAN’T FIND A FULL-TIME JOB?
What are you doing – and is the work related to your long-term career plans? Do you have more than one part-time job? How hard is it to find full-time work at the moment?
I can’t even find a part-time job – I set myself up freelance so as not to go back to the job centre. I really don’t earn very much at all…
Look, here’s how I see it. We don’t live in Utopia.
There’s not enough jobs for everyone. It’s that simple. Not everyone can be in a job that is summate to their experience and learning. It’s a buyer’s market, there’s a lot of competition.
We’re making it out like the Government is leading people into part-time jobs with a gun to their back. They’re not. Anyone who’d choose no work over part-time work probably doesn’t deserve the opportunity to work until they realise that any work is important work.
If the choice for me was between part-time work and contributing to society, or sitting at home and doing nothing, I’d take the part-time job as long as it was on fair terms (wage, etc).
The inclusion of “part time” workers in statistics fuzzies the picture, and I think that’s wrong. But it’s not wrong if people are in part-time work because they can’t find full time work. Any work is better than no work.
What’s actually wrong with taking what you can find if it pays a wage?
@Craig
I don’t think we’re saying part-time work isn’t useful or worthwhile work – I think the point is that people are finding that it’s so difficult to find full-time work that they are having to do part-time work instead, which means they are earning a lot less. Several part-time jobs might add up to a full-time wage, but I think more often people find themselves with only one, which means their earnings are only a fraction – a third, half, two-thirds… – of what they would be if they’d been able to find a full-time job. The point is that they can’t find enough hours of work, so they end up scrabbling around trying to work half-days here and there, or three days a week when they want to be working five days a week… That these people appear as ’employed’ is perhaps misleading, when they’re only really semi-employed?
Perhaps, but that’s a problem with the way the statistics are reported (which I acknowledge, is wrong).
But we do know the job market is crap – and personally, I do think it’s good news that some people are now at least finding *some* work, even if it’s not ideal work.
I remember when I worked part-time. If it wasn’t for part-time work post-university, I’d have gone absolutely MAD with despair and feeling useless.
@Tanya
Thank you for your book very good reading
There will always be high unemployment numbers in the United Kingdom because of a bunch of different reason:
1. advances in technology means less hands on working (robots taking over what humans once done)
2. cheaper countries to manufacture in China
3. cheaper countries to have call centres such as India or the Philippines
4. wages are lower in countries such as India, China and the Philippines
5. companies have moved bases to better countries with more flexible employment laws or taxes
Thanks Matthew – so glad you’re finding the book helpful! Any chance you could take 2 mins to write a quick review?
http://graduatefog.myshopify.com/pages/customer-reviews
thanks so much!
Tanya
I’m going to order the book soon – However I already have a job, I’m just interested in all things intern.
I’ll leave a review when I’m done 😉
My experince is I can’t even get part time work, let alone full time. THose in part time should be dam gratful. I applied for part time work as a cleaner, hotel receptionist, shop worker, one interview in three months. Job centre tell me I am doing all the right things and even have a good CV, so what the hell?
I think it should be widely known that, for 18 – 24 year olds, it is literally impossible to survive with a part-time job. As soon as you get any work at all, your JSA is taken away along with a big chunk of your housing benefit, meaning that you’ll likely not afford your rent. You’re not eligible for any tax credits either.
When I was on benefits, I was over the moon when I was offered a job at minimum wage for 10 hours a week… Then I got told by the job centre that I shouldn’t take it because I’d actually be left worse off. I would’ve taken it anyway because I was so desperate to get something, but I couldn’t risk having even less money because I would have ended up on the street. I just couldn’t believe it, I felt like I was being punished for finding work.
Me and my partner lost jobs one after the other and went on jsa and housing benefit. Then jsa, housing benefit and I got a 6hr job. Then housing benefit my 6hr job and a 3hr job my partner got a zero hr contract. Then housing benefit a 10hr job 3hr job and my partners zero hr job.
Now were on no benefit I work a 10hr job, 25hr job and my now ex-partner who I still have to live with due to lack of money, works in the same zero hour job averaging 6 hr a week. Only being able to get part time work when all you want to do is work full time, pay your own way and not be looked down upon by most people is hard. I am grateful for my 2 cleaning jobs and Working does make people feel better.
But I still don’t see how company’s taking a 40hr job and making 4 10hr jobs to cut costs will help the country. If a large amount of the population is working a part time job or even 2 part time jobs like me. They are falling short of earning the personal allowance and are not paying tax. Which means less money going in the pot but we still have lots of unemployed and other things taxes are needed for. If this trend continues things can only get worse.
( Working and getting jsa will not make you worse off.)
I’m seriously considering whether if I don’t find full-time work (of more than a few days, like one agency job which didn’t work out) at some point (say after Xmas, since that would be the 12-month point of being out of work), if I should make to my parents’ (despite it being in the sticks, so having transport problems – expensive trains etc) from my houseshare so I can stop worrying about rent, and can at least apply for part-time, casual, freelance etc work too (though – of course – you can’t be sure you’d get it).
As long as I’m renting and on JSA and Housing Benefit it doesn’t seem I’ll ever be able to afford working under c 25-30 hours a week due to the benefit trap. Also, as long as I’m here short-term work elsewhere or abroad doesn’t seem feasible because I’d either need to give up my home and take a serious gamble (and end up with my parents anyway if I lost), or to somehow pay for accommodation in two places simultaneously.
@Roseib: There are some situations where can be worse off in part-time work (even with some left over Housing Benefit), especially if there’s only one of you rather than a couple. My Job Centre advisors have actually explicitly told me I could end up worse off in part time work.
It gets complicated and confusing, and the Job Centre and council won’t explain it properly to me – and the benefit calculator doesn’t including HB since that’s to do with the Council – so I’m not going to risk my roof over my head if I can’t get a straight answer on whether or not I could pay my rent in part-time work. Food and shelter have to be the ultimate priority before everything else.
It’s not just whether you’re worse in the long term too. The short term can be even worse (if you’re out of work and have no money, getting something delayed a few weeks or months can be the same as just not getting it) – I took an agency job I thought would last a few weeks and it only lasted 2 days.
As required I’d signed off before the job, and the Council automatically suspended my Housing Benefit. Despite a rapid reclaim sign on for JSA and taking my new income information to the Council in person, I had no Housing Benefit for nearly two months (leaving me with a £90/week rent to pay on c £71/week JSA). As a lodger (ie with few rights), if my landlords had been less nice and I’d had no family to help (and they don’t exactly have bottomless pockets) I could conceivably have ended up evicted and on the streets simply as a result of taking work. Which is crazy.
I realise that this post is old – but very real today. I took a 28 hrs per week job – being told I’d likely go full time. Still wait 1.5 years later! So.. I got another partime job. But this is minimum wage, zero and difficult to fit in with my day job. It’s worked out that I’m usually rota-ed on for the min wage job, when there is overtime at double the pay at the main job. I’m earning just enough to not be entitled to any health, or other help (18 yr old cat on 3 medications now,entitlement to PDSA has just ran out – aaahh!
I live in a cheap and run down flat, have no social life, no treats and am running out of clothes for work (can’t find any suitable in the 2nd hand shops – been trying!). Not been to the dentists for 2 years.
My life the last 1.5 years has been a constant, stressy: trying to fit in as much work as possible and figure out how I can avoid debt this month – very rare! Looks like I have will have to forgo union membership and the small pension payments I’ve been trying my best to hang on to. Everything is falling apart and I can’t replace any of it. If I eat well – marked down food usually – that’s a good week. If this is how it is with 2 part time jobs… Trust me it is not worth earning just enough to get no benefits at all. Think before getting into this situation, because I don’t know hoeally nw to get out of it now! I thought earning nearly 14k was doable, it’s really not.
* Not in the South, anyway…
I was made redundant and have managed to find a part time job with zero hours. I earn about the same as some one on benafits and I even had to get a food parcel . I desperately need and would beg for a full time job as iv got bills to pay just like everyone else . I get no help from any one and struggle to keep a roof over my head .