The 'Welfare-to-work' programme aims to help those who are long term unemployed return to work. Those who have been out of work for more than six months find it especially difficult to find work. They have become disenchanted and detached from the workforce, as they loose the skills and habit of work and become more distant to current work practises. Perhaps it is needless to say that as the period of unemployment becomes longer these problems worsen.
So the government have been paying for additional help, through private sector organisations, to get the long term unemployed back to work. They do this by a variety of methods that often includes training.
A report has shown that the number of people helped find a job is just 3.53% of those on the welfare-to-work programmes have found jobs.
Is this policy a waste of money? In a period when the government spending much more than it anticipated would a policy of doing nothing and simply paying the benefits be a better idea?
It seems with such a low people actually gaining a job after partaking in the training program that it is a waste of government expenditure and time, although creating a few job in itself through the running of the program, surely it would be more advisable to actually create jobs through fiscal policy. Although it could be argued that this would lead to less skilled workforce, firms could then pay themselves to train these people when they hire them. Furthermore they will now be trained specifically to aid there job, not in a general field which just promotes you to be more employable.
ReplyDeletejobs are created by economic growth, therefore introducing a scheme based on predictions that the economy will grow seems unnecessary and unreliable to invest large amounts of money in. Perhaps the government saw it as an opportunity to claim responsibility for reducing unemployment when it occurs alongside growth anyway. they clearly did not meet their 5% target, however since the economy was shrinking (not growing as predicted) and a few people were still finding jobs, this might suggest that the scheme does work. i think more time is needed to decide whether the scheme will be a success but i don't think it was set up on good data and research in the first place.
ReplyDeleteMiles Pelling
. Giving incentives-in the form of cash payments is all well and good-but I think it somewhat misses the point, perhaps the fact that so many people are long term unemployed may demand more to be done with training etc; granted I do not know that much about the W4W programme and its emphasis on training,I think perhaps if it had a greater emphasis on training and education rather than just placing people into jobs which they may not be well qualified to do,perhaps it would be better than benefits. Also quite interested into how they calculated the figures which they give to the firms, the BBC suggests that it is between £3,700 and £13700 per person which is given to firms but I don't understand how they came to this figure, perhaps the reason why their target was missed is because firms feel as if the figure is too small to employ someone who has been unemployed for a long while. Just my thoughts really. -Tim.A
ReplyDeleteThe Work Programme has been a failure. I think it is right that people are in work paying taxes, contributing to society and making the economy more productive because the alternative is that the State loses money through lower tax receipts and more welfare spending. But Work Programme has been a mess. Not only has Connexions schemes, the New Deal and Future Jobs Fund have been scrapped but this scheme has been introduced and has failed to meet the 5% target. Also, it is a payment by results scheme but the results have so poor which clearly means it is ineffective and a waste of money.
ReplyDeleteThe Government should not sit on their laurels and waste taxpayer's money in order to trick people into thinking they are doing something on unemployment, when they are not. They need to start acting which means having a fully costed fiscal stimulus - like more housebuilding, more economic powers for the regions, more infrustructure spending, lower taxes for SMEs so they can take people on - because with that investment comes economic growth and with such growth comes more jobs in the private sector. Also, they should not have this feeble 5% target which they can't even get right but they should be more ambitious and aim for full employment.
I’m very interested in Tim’s point that we should concentrate on the levels of training that these people entered into the scheme are receiving, as this is evidently a key point for keeping these people out of long-term unemployment, although this is admittedly difficult to measure, but I do not think that this point is worth worrying about unduly as in my mind any firm would make sure that all it’s employees are working to their full potential otherwise surely they wouldn’t be in business especially within this recession. I have to say overall that I cannot give this policy the scathing report that others have given it. I think it should be noted that the low figure given: 3.53% employed is those employed for over 6 months and that actually 50% of those on the scheme are off benefits and 25% are in work at the moment. What this scheme is doing is giving people good working habits as well as skills, which they can utilize in the long run. Even if we can get these people working for only brief periods at a time, that is a massive improvement from them simply being on benefits. Naturally firms are always going to choose those who have recently been in work over those who have been on the dole for ages so if someone has been working through this scheme they are naturally going to have more of an advantage in the job market, integrating them back into work, which is the whole aim of this scheme. Admittedly the scheme has underperformed, but what must be remembered is that we have globally underperformed particularly on the subject of growth and this is naturally going to have an affect on the job market, which is going to affect this scheme, and so we must evaluate that issue carefully.
ReplyDeleteAnd on a slightly different note: Renie full employment is just ridiculous. Not only is this simply an unrealistic aim, but it is also a stupid aim, as full employment would mean that firms no longer have a pool of labour to choose from, which would drive up wages and make us even more uncompetitive than we already are.