The government attempts to justify the scheme by asserting
that, under it, claimants gain valuable, transferrable, employment skills while
businesses get to trial staff on a risk-free basis at no cost to them. Sounds
like a good deal, right? No.
The scheme effectively amounts to requiring claimants of
Jobseekers’ Allowance, worth £56.25 per week,
to work for free for up to thirty hours a week for employers in the private
sector. As the government can make benefits contingent on attending Workfare
placements, that amounts to total consideration of £1.88 per hour. Even in the
entry-level positions that Workfare generally places people, the companies
would have to pay someone they actually employed to do the job at least £6.19 per hour, which
is the National Minimum Wage.
The Workfare system does nothing to cut the benefits bill,
because it is the government, and not the employer, that foots the bill for the
benefits while the claimant is on placement. This effectively amounts to the
taxpayer subsidising private enterprises by providing a workforce free of
charge.
But what of the supposed enhanced employment prospects of
the claimants put into these placements? Only
3.5% of people referred to the work programme have been able to find paid
employment lasting six months or longer. What can we make of the balance of
96.5%? Are they, as our leaders might suggest, scroungers and shirkers (such
emotive and pejorative language being par for the course in the ConDem
Coalition)? Did all of the 96.5%, as some might say, just "go through the motions" and not learn from the experience, that being the reason they can't get a job?
There are an estimated 463,000
positions currently available, and these are being chased by 2.68 million
people currently in the dole queue. That’s nearly 6 applicants for every
single job, before you even consider people currently in work and looking for
their next position, which makes every vacancy even more sought after.
Ms Reilly wasn’t in paid work, but she already had an unpaid
placement in a museum that was very relevant to her existing skills and
experience and no doubt would have been valuable in helping her to secure paid
employment in her field of expertise. To force her to give up one unpaid
position in favour of another one stacking shelves in Poundland, which is far
less relevant to her skills and experience, is beyond perverse.
This isn’t about pride or a belief that the position was
below her (she has since taken up a paid position in a supermarket) but the
principle that if work is available it should be paid. If Poundland need a
shelf-stacker, a cashier, a cleaner or anything else they should employ and pay
one.
Which is precisely why Workfare won’t do anything for the
employment crisis. Why would any employer hire and pay a member of staff if
they can get one for free from the government? Every Workfare placement is one
less job on the market, and therefore one less opportunity for a claimant to
enter paid work. Workfare itself is constricting the supply of jobs, meaning
that the volume of applicants for every vacancy won’t be heading south any time
soon.
