Jobless Teens Will Have To Pick Up Litter To Get Dole

[lindapalmara]

I know this is contencious amongst the Liberal left on this site but I do think it gives youngsters a work ethic and a feeling of putting something back into society.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2956422/Jobless-teens-pick-litter-dole-Cameron-use-ringer-speech-claim-wrong-receive-handouts-straight-away.html

http://www.nationalheadlines.co.uk/947406/jobless-teens-will-have-to-pick-litter-to-get-dole-cameron-to-use-ringer-speech-to-claim-it-is-wrong-they-can-receive-handouts-straight-away/

[flump1]

I agree to a point Linda, I know of a young couple who might benefit from this scheme. The young man (24) has had so many jobs and is now unemployable due t his behaviour and the young lady ( 18 ) decided she didn't want to go to work so stopped. I can't see either of them being happy to do this though ! Other youngsters may be stigmatised by doing this, albeit for a short while.

[mikey4444]

Linda...I suppose I am on your Liberal Left, and I agree on principle. We can't continue to give people money for not doing anything.

But has this been properly thought out ? What unemployed people need is a proper job, with proper pay and conditions. If they are going to pick litter up, shouldn't this be done by a Council employee....maybe one that has been made redundant by the local Council, because of budget cuts ?

Its always the same with "Work for the Dole" ideas. If we get untrained, unemployed people in roles that should be done by a properly employed worker, it deprives others of a real job. I can see lots of work that needs to be done on my community, that isn't being done now because of budget cuts. Our Library Services, for instance, are struggling. Every voluntary or compulsory person drafted in just makes the unemployment situation worse.

This isn't really a party-political point, and I hope your post starts a good debate on the subject.

[jim360]

The problem is that this amounts to community service. Certain criminals receive community service as a punishment. Since when was being unemployed a crime?

[factor-fiction]

I don't really understand the logic there jim.
However I doubt this will ever happen- there will be legal challenges, claims of slave labour, issues about ill health/disability...

[jim360]

Well, I think there is some logic to it, although I was deliberately going a bit too far for dramatic effect. Involuntary community service is used as a punishment in some cases, and making it effectively involuntary here (or, if you choose not to, then presumably you will lose your benefits) seems to me to have the same effect. There is instead a certain amount of social stigma attached to community service. In some cases, it might even drive people further away from society.

If such proposals are to be implemented, and I can see the point to an extent, then perhaps some form of two-tier system is more sensible. A fixed, but reduced, amount of benefit is given out in all cases, and then volunteering for community service could supplement this. Then it has the feel of a proper job, albeit not a particularly pleasant one.

[ummmm]

I agree, Jim, there needs to be some sort of reward/incentive. But where are all these jobs going to come from and who will monitor it all?

[sandyRoe]

If they pick up the litter will that not be doing street sweepers out of a job?

[Retrochic]

Here we go Cameron flapping about in the water again in a vain attempt to convince the voters he's actually doing something to help Young people. Don't make them pick litter on a slave labour basis- get some money into training schemes like the old Youth Opportunity Schemes, where young people get a wage while training. How are genuine young people going to look for jobs they actually want to do if they are made to pick litter? What about post graduates? will they be expected to go litter picking when they leave Uni?

[sunny-dave]

It's not slave labour or demeaning - divide a person's total benefit by the minimum wage and make them do something useful to society for that number of hours.

My travels around the UK road network tell me that there is plenty of litter to go round.

[sunny-dave]

There were plenty of days when I didn't much want to be at work - but it was a necessary evil if I wanted to be paid each week.

Instilling that discipline into the long term unemployed (especially the young people in that situation) is no bad thing.

[jim360]

It's hard to see how teens can count as "long-term unemployed". Many of them will have been unemployed for a year, or at most three years, and the latter will have therefore left education at 16 which, presumably, not particularly good grades. If we want such people to find employment, then they need skills-based training. Litter-picking ain't that.

[Retrochic]

dave -in no way did I say litter picking is demeaning. If I was a teenager and expected to pick up litter like the retards on community service, rather than being pro-active in finding a job -I would be peed off to say the least. I'd be especially peed off if my lazy middle-aged neighbor who had never worked in his life was sat watching me while spending his benefit money on white lightening and fags.

[Retrochic]

Exactly jim -the old YOPS scheme paid a decent wage to school leavers while they did 6 months training. My mother had one as a trainee gardener and although she could not offer him a permanent job, he got a job soon after on recommendation and because he had been trained in basic skills.

[whiskeryron]

Where are all the jobs that the Tories always suggest that the unemployed should go & get ? I know, why not have an agency department where employers who are looking for workers could register their requirements, then job seekers could go there to seek employment ? Don't fellow A/Bers think that this would be a fantastic idea ?

[alavahalf]

I was just about to say " Why stop at teenagers" .. there is a whole country full of people who have adapted to a Life On Benefits and seek to go no further in life.
We should have the cleanest streets in Europe !

[Old_Geezer]

I think any act of refusing to create a job position for a job that needs doing, and thus failing to give a job to someone who wants one, because it's going to be kept to get welfare folk to do without a salary, is a bad thing. If society wants kids to get a work ethic then give them a proper job. One could retire all the over 50s to free up a lot of job positions for them, if needed.

[Retrochic]

whiskeyron -maybe they should just ask someone from Eastern Europe -they seem to have no problems in finding the jobs!

[VHG]

The problem with all these schemes is that someone has to monitor it to check it is being done.

If you just send people out on the streets and say "spend the day picking up litter" they will go to the park and sit there all day.

So who does the monitoring, and who pays them?

Surely it is silly to pay someone to sit and watch another person picking up litter.

[whiskeryron]

//
Retrochic
whiskeryron -maybe they should just ask someone from Eastern Europe -they seem to have no problems in finding the jobs! // Someone from Eastern Europe could perhaps be persuaded to run the job agency.

[tonyav]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10205511/UK-jobs-being-advertised-across-the-EU-at-taxpayers-expense-it-emerges.html