Getting Britain Back to Work: The Challenges that the Politicians Don't Know About

One of the biggest problems in trying to find work for people who are Long Term Unemployed is employability.

It’s awful easy for political parties to boast that they will get everyone back to work, but the politicians and their advisors who promise this never actually meet the people that they are supposedly going to get working.

I start with the premise that if you can work; you work. It’s not a choice (unless you can find yourself a rich partner). There should be no choosing a life on the dole. So you must work. That’s how the world works. We can surely all agree on that.

But then we come to the stumbling blocks. As I’ve said I’ve worked for 10+ years on a variety of projects with 15-16 year olds, 45+, with people wanting to return to work after illness, and on general programmes which include anyone unemployed.

In many of these projects I’ve worked with employers too and I’ve been shocked at the expectations on both sides. There is a lack of realism from employers as to what they can expect for, often, the minimum wage. On the other hand how little some people expect to do for their money and how much they expect when they offer so little by way of skills, is quite incredible. We need to bridge that credibility gap. Companies need to be encouraged to play a part in the society in which they operate, but looking to employ locals.

People of all ages who have been out of work for a while face real problems, especially when there are so many recently-redundant people, who are used to the disciplines of work, in the job market.

But quite apart from that we are faced with a mismatch of talents/abilities and skill demands. We used to be a manufacturing nation. There were in my own town, jute works employing thousands to do skilled, semi skilled and unskilled factory work. The same could be said of the engineering works and the boat yards, the jam, chocolate and frozen foods factories, the battery factories and the ones that made fridges and false teeth or printed newspapers...... Thousands and thousands of people worked in these jobs and on the farms that surrounded the town.

Now there is Michelin, which I guess employs only a few hundred people.

The people of the town haven’t really changed. Most of them still want, and feel they can do, that kind of job. They are uncomfortable in the call centres for Tesco, BT, Tax Office, Work and Pensions office. At the risk of being politically incorrect we stopped having the jobs, but we didn’t stop having the people who were at home doing them.

We have people of all ages who can’t read, write or count, and some who do not have the social skills for face to face work with customers, and, although stores provide, as Allan said, warehouse work, the numbers are tiny by comparison.

But there are many people who are unemployable for other reasons than skills mismatch. Put yourself in the place of an employer. Do you want the guy who is just out of prison; the mother with 5 kids; the man who clearly has a drink problem; the girl on a methadone programme; the painfully thin, ill looking girl; the grossly fat boy; the disabled person for whom they are going to have to do structural alterations; the person with the disfigurement, or the skin problem; the guy with the front teeth that have rotted; the person with so much debt that she’s made it clear that the wage is not going to be enough, or the lad with a worry about the Child Support Agency coming after him?

For sure Mr Duncan Smith will have problems getting these people into work. I’m available as an advisor... at a price Iain, if you’re reading this.

Top pic: Cox's Stack. Lochee's jute mill employed at one time 5000 people. The mill is now gone but the stack remains as reminder of more prosperous times for the suburb of Dundee. Jute workers were notoriously badly paid, so it wasn't the workers that were prosperous.