How 750,000 of the dole queue have turned down or quit work

More than 600,000 of the unemployed have faced sanctions for either refusing to take on work or quitting a job to go on benefits, it emerged last night.
Around 177,000 of those on Jobseeker’s Allowance rejected reasonable job offers, while 444,000 quit their employment voluntarily and claimed benefit, figures show.
A further 123,000 went on to the benefit after being fired for misconduct.

All faced a cut in their benefits for their behaviour but ministers are now proposing tougher sanctions for the so-called ‘job refuseniks’.
Anyone who breaches strict rules, including refusing to show up for training, could have their benefits withheld for at least three months. Under the proposals claimants would have to accept reasonable job offers and the jobless would have to sign up to ‘claimant commitment’, which will define what is expected of them in return for income support.
JobCentres will also provide support with personalised back-to-work programmes.

Source

Be honest, we all know some fiddlers. Sort the b......ds out.

i've got a job , albeit a shit job , but the pay is ok so..... but my question is , in whos opinion are the jobs that are turned down " reasonable".What is " reasonable"... i know you will get the i would sweep the street brigade , but would you really?

i suppose i should of clicked on the link first....The Mail...i might of known.

It's in the Telegraph as well ace.

so its in 2 tory rags then???

some of the ones i know , employ people cash in hand ...what we gonna do about them?

Yep, but that's not what I am on about. I've always grafted for what I want, e.g. I need some roof work doing so am going for that census work to get some dosh towards it. Not wishing to get on my high horse but I am 68 and don't really fancy working, but if I have ever wanted something I have always worked for it and reckon there are too may idle gits out there who want it for nowt and think the rest of us owe them a living. I've picked sprouts, potatoes, weeds and worked in a pie factory and a bakery. Worked in Vauxhalls and on the buses. Done fibre glass factory work and other kinds of shoit....see what I'm getting at? If you want something then graft for it. Even my bloody pension gets taxed.

another topic that's likely to have opposing points of view

I'll get my coat and leave the room before I have a good rant

rant away derek, jase will always knock you off if you get too carried away.

Its about time the powers to be started looking at,
Are benefits to high or are wages to low. It seems to me that if someone can earn more money on benefits than working, they are never likely to get a job, thats going to reduce their standard of living. By making people work for poor wages and making their money up in benefits, isn't that using my taxes to prop up firms for shareholders etc, shouldn't these firms be made to pay wages in line with what people can earn on the dole. Governments will do anything to get figures down, regardless who suffers, as long as it looks good on there campaign garbage. More propaganda, the more they pick on the jobless, the more people will think there are jobs to have.

Bert, you and I can remember the old cry "£20 a week for everyone." Well, I think we have got it but what's the use. People who don't do a bit can't expect to get the same as those who are getting their hands dirty. Without the firms making profits then there's no work anyway. Single mothers moaning because they can't afford to take the kids abroad on holiday? What's that all about?

I've worked hard all my workin life as well , never asked for anything , payed my way , encouraging my kids to do the same.But i would n't agree with the source that was offered when having a go at a group whom that paper likes to have a go at..Dole spongers do my head in as well, they are the ones that need targeting , not a group of people that may have turned down jobs , that may have been dangerous ,may have been miles away , etc etc , thats why i asked what was reasonable.

BTW, i have 2 friends whom were made unemployed in the last year , and they have been hounded relentlessly to take any job , where as people i know who have never worked , and spend most of there days in the doorway of the local , smoking , are not getting challenged.That pisses me off

See where you are coming from toffee but if I needed work I was never too fussy, did what had to be done. If travelling round the world isn't miles away then I don't know what is, and it wasn't all comfy stuff either. It always sounds bad when you blow your own trumpet but that's what I did and I can't understand the reluctance of people not taking whatever is going even if it is just to tide them over. If a submarine isn't dangerous then I don't know what is, and I'm chuckling now.

All I'm saying Bandy, if someone gets a job for minimum wage and still has to receive benefits to live, the firm are not paying a living wage, it falls back on the tax payer, part of our taxes are then going to prop up firms and shareholders.If these benefits were not paid, firms would be forced to pay a decent wage, in my eyes these firms are no better than a so called dole scrounger, i think they know they can get away with it because the tax payer hands out millions instead of them coughing up out of their profits.

In that case bert you have to come up with a better system. I learnt of another one last week. Take a job, do the probation plus a little bit then go down with stress and get loadsa money whilst also doing cash jobs on the side. Nice one eh?

but i'm sure working on a submarine was your choice Bandycoot. thats the point. there are jobs out there that i would be reluctant to take for a minimum wage.imagine being forced to do something that you knew was dangerous , or spent most of your minimum wage just getting to and from.

No mate, I was press ganged, but you just get stuck in and learn to get on with it and love it. Everyone has to follow their own star if you like but then again you can choose your lifestyle etc. (as in working in boats was my choice) but you can also work to alter your course surely? These difficult, dangerous, dirty jobs. If we won't do them and they have to be done then who will? Is that what immigrants are for? What a minefield.

hahaha press ganged , fair enough.....i'm not saying we shouldnt be afraid of getting our hands dirty , just a fair days pay for a fair days work...Like Bert said , a lot of these firms can afford a living wage , some of them even get massive subsidies to employ people .My original point was anyway , i dont like picking on one group of society...and i've found the paper whos link was up are quite good at that .Has everyone forgot how much the MPS are screwing us for , tax dodgers , local politicians on the gravy train ... those people piss me off as much, they cost us more .

dirty jobs!
Besides the class system we still have, are we now getting a caste system as well?

How strange Derek, these so called jobs are offered to the so called ... bags on the dole, where they offered to the so called decent people on the dole, and did they take them, in fact do they even exist or are they just in the minds of politicians, yet again they get people thinking that jobs are bountiful because people are refusing to do them.

Oh what a beautiful mooooorning, oh what a beautiful day.....

like you bert I don't believe there are enough jobs out there to get most of peeps unemployed into work ( at least not in this area - maybe London and round there)
Agencies are a waste of time if they didn't exist maybe more permanent jobs would become available instead of their one day or one week ones and then made to wait a fortnight to make a
reclaim for benefits
And before anyone thinks I'm one of the unemployed - I'm not
I put in 30+ years in the same job

Like you Derek, before anyone thinks I'm unemployed, I'm not and never have been, If more effort was put in to producing jobs instead of grinding people into the dirt, it might be a better place.

It's ever been the case but.....you have to come up with a better system. When you think about it, I've just been watching the news, Ivory Coast, Burma, Zambia, Mozambique, Somalia, Eritrea, and so the list goes on.... have it much worse than us and we're moaning. Maybe we should reverse the people trafficking and get ourselves smuggled out there so that they can come here and do the shoity jobs and we can go out there and wallow in the sun. Personally, I think I will stay here.

Its not about doing the shitty jobs, its about being told you have to do the shitty jobs or any help you currently recieve of this government ,( remember , we are all in this together )will be gone .

Hi room

Takes a deep breath, ok here we go...

I am currently not working so signing on the dole.

i hate it because there is no way i can survive on the money they give yuo(ok after filling out forms etc)

I know that they push you into jobs, after all thats their job, lol

I remember one bloke at an interview saying that working with him will give me a NVQ lvl 2 in !!!, which would help me lots in the future, the interview ended when i said I could frame it between the other two I have, Lvl 3 and lvl 4.

Still if I had not turned up for these interview then my dole would have been stopped

My advice is to reg with the local agencies and go for it.

Boy there is some crap jobs out there. but there again some good laughs, not great money, but at least your earning.

There are jobs out there, most crap but you can soon filter them out, plus the agencies help

Nomad

Good luck Nomad, That is the spirit. I hope you find something soon.

There just aren't enough jobs out there despite what the Tory rags make out. Those jobs there are often McJobs with crap conditions, no pension, sick pay etc.
We need to change the way we run our economy. Rebuild our manufacturing base and start making things again. Thus creating good jobs and a sense of purpose in peoples' lives. Thatcher has a lot to answer for her destruction of our heavy industry and the many jobs that went with it.

Ignoring the spongers, I can never get it into my head as to why some poor bugger who has worked for the same company for x number of years gets made redundant and all of a sudden he is ... because he has to sign on. Is he (sorry, or she) supposed to live in a cupboard until the powers that be decide to get them out if needed?

Please don't be fooled by Tory spin and the crap their newspapers put out. The upper classes have been fiddling us for years and use unemployed and disabled as a smokescreen.

The people who make the rules are the ones who never have to abide by them.

Ignore the fact that my politics are slightly to the Right of Atilla the Hun. No one is banging on about the poor souls who have recently lost their jobs and are trying to find another one. They are on about the out and out scroungers who know all the ropes and have for years been milking the system for max gains. The more they take out of the system the less there is for the unfortunates who really need a helping hand. Like I said before, there are known people who take the max out and also work on the side whilst they are pretending to be too sick to work. If you can convince me that that is how it should be then I will show my arse in Woolworths window.

You'd be lucky to find a woolworths window, lol :-)

Germany still has woolworths

The boys no fool, he's lost arguments before.

Woolworths is online now...

Yeh but how do you decide who is a sponger and who is a genuine claimant? The DSS or whatever they are called jump all over the the soft targets and leave the bad ones alone. There was a documentary on the box many years back that followed investigators. They admitted most of those charged were the most needy. Please don't give us this propaganda about there being more for the needy if they clamped down on the scroungers. Fact: There are billions unclaimed every year. I don't see any TV adverts telling those people to fill their boots. If I was religious I would say there but for the grace of god go I. I pity anyone whose politics are to the right of Atilla the Hun because unless you are one of the Eton/Harrow set then they don't give a f*** about you! You are extremely naive if you think otherwise.

How can you do your pick n mix online ?

If we forget about so called scroungers on the dole and who's right of Attila and left of Lenin,Helles raised a very good and what should be taken as a serious point, the billions that are not being paid out in benefits to the genuine needy. I wonder how many people in this country are aware of their true entitlement, how many people are aware of who to turn to for free independent advice. Luckily i have never had to do it, years ago an elderly chap i used to keep an eye on went to see, through a friend of a friend a benefits adviser, the adviser was a voluntary adviser, set up by some left wing organisation to help the elderly and unemployed, thanks to them his income was raised about £17 a week, the thing is, we shouldn't all have to be Philadelphia lawyers to get our rightful allowances and the people of this country shouldn't be made to look like shameful scroungers to get what is their rightful entitlement. If its thought that its fair play to chase these so called benefit cheats then its also fair play to make sure that people get every penny thats rightfully theirs. The top echelon of this society have all sorts of lawyers and accountants making sure they don't pay a penny in taxes if they can get away with it, why not the same help for the bottom rung of the ladder.

you can't wack a good ol' left wing rant. Hitler could not teach a lefty anything about being intolerant of anybody else's point of view. You are right boys and everyone else is totally wrong, exterminate.

Exterminate, that was the Daleks Bandy.

Oh yeeeaaahh!
Anyway bert, give people what they need not what they want is what I'm trying to get at.
Need a pair of shoes? Here you go
Want a pair of Nikes? Bog off. You want Nikes do a bit extra to get 'em.

I agree Bandy, but don't give them one shoe when their entitled to two. Don't forget you haven't paid your dues all your life only to be deprived of your entitlements by secrecy and gobbledygook, they would soon come after you for not paying your taxes etc, they are not so quick in coming forward and telling what you should have.

i agree with you all....think they should take a good thing from the usa (about the only good thing) and use the likes of food, clothing in the form of vouchers....
i have been in an unemployed household where we were on the dole, yeh things were tightish but i could go and get a new pair of trabs (named) for the kids on giroday, pay for new clothes, decorate their room at a whim easily on the dole and the cupboards were always full.....

have also been on the other foot where me and hubby both worked for years, him nights, me days ( my job i hated and got just over minimum wage but they worked u as a dog) and couldnt even afford a roll of wallpaper at the end of the week...
we sat and watched ppl, when we actually got time to spend together, on the dole being able to afford the luxury of a pint, whilst hubby and i couldnt even afford a six pack between us.....
the only good thing is we have a sense of pride....
i came out of work last month, my choice, to hopefully start up my own business, coz i was sick of being used and abused as a nursery nurse (really shit career and wouldnt advise no-one to go into it)
i am claiming nothing, only the change in circumstances for tax credits, am not arsed about my stamp as it means nothing....i dont care no more....
yes there are billions of unclaimed benefits lying around but where does it go....lining parliament and their cronies no doubt..or to send away as child benefit to other EU countries, because there parents have the luxury of a job here....
this subject makes me angry

good luck with the biz queen. research your stamp thing though, my missus had to pay back money to get the rest of her pensh. I know the rules are changing so no idea what the score is but would just suggest you be careful with the stamp. finding that every little extra helps now I'm on the pensh myself, not entitled to any assistances, regarded as too rich.

http://www.woolworths.co.uk/?cm_re=Homepage-_-Header-_-Logo link for you summer

Sounds like you're talking about the Royal Family!

thanx bandy i will, that is another thing that knocks me sik and maybe u should put up ur own thread about it..the way pensioners are treated after working most if not all of their lives....
all governments are take take take and wont allow nothing for no-one....

Talking of entitlements I fell off my perch when I was 57yrs after full employment for 42yrs (Yes - very lucky) went to Job Centre/Dole and was informed just because my savings were (JUST)over the limit I could only claim for myself and not wife/mortgage etc (£41.62p/week for a limited period) - many of my colleagues who p**sed it up the wall (and I've had my share!!) bookies/hols abroad etc did quite well, in fact 13 years later quite a few have not worked since
Of couse everyone is entitled to do what they want with their hard earned cash - my gripe is why was I penalised??
Again I was very lucky finding work after about 6 months, and continued in full employment until 65yrs and then part time until 70yrs!!

Blimey queen, I think I do enough moanin' as it is. Correct about all governments but at the end of the day we have got just about the best system. Don't like the idea of being on the streets every day burning cars and smashing windows but it doesn't half hack me off.

i agree buddy, its wrong...and bandy am sure u could stretch that little bit more...your rants make me laff lol

That's because they're not real rants queen, just getting a bit off me chest, some of it is tongue in cheek and it does wind some peeps up which is what I really really really like, just ask the missus.

Now if you were devious Buddy, you could have put that in a off shore account, claimed duel citizenship and the likes, just like the ones who tell us we're naughty and something to be wiped off a shoe.

When I was out of work in 75/76 I was told to bugger off and sort myself out just like I had been doing for the previous 15 years. That's how I ended up joining up again, b......ds!

At least when you get on the census you won't have to stand on a doorstep and fill the form in with a Quill, like those poor buggers on Ancestry.

Good idea Bert - trouble was/is:-
a) didn't know about it - didn't have enough to invest
b) daughter/grandkids (1 parent family) have had it and that's why I was still working until 70!!! - kids!! who'd have 'em eh!!!!

Still no word back from the census yet bert, so don't know if I'll even get it. At least I'm not desperate for it though, it would just be nice to get that few bob towards the roof and a bit of pointing. In the between time I'll just keep taking the bitter.