The UK Government has said that their think tank has got the numbers wrong for the people that have spent more than 1 year out of work. It seems they have lost the skills needed to be in a working environment.
As a long term (and I do mean long term) unemployed worker, I agree with this point. I do not have the skills for employment. I am "sociably unworkable" to a point where I will now panic over getting a job and have that voice in the back of my mind that I am always doing the wrong thing. It is not being pro active nor is it being confident in who I am. It is the fact of being in a working frame of mind to basically live up to the employer and not feeling a failure. Having this in my mind is as worrying as me going for a job within itself.
So many years ago I attended a program to get me skills for the workplace. I gained two qualifications. My confidence went up when I got it. But I needed another and had to wait 6 months to go back to get that, do the study and make myself get that exam pass for the NVQ. I got it and tried to look for work. Nothing happened. Spent a year looking. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2002 I was back on this training scheme looking again at advancing myself further in knowledge. It was then I was sort of made to leave.* No matter how hard I tried, I could not find a job from that. In the end I found a job stacking shelves. But as I did not have the right skills I was dismissed after 2 months. I could not hold a job.
And you know what? I still think that. No matter how many times I go on schemes to help me look for work, write letters or look on the internet at new job leads, I can not find work. I have gotten to a point where I feel as though any job is not right for me. My confidence has hit rock bottom. And I know many others out there will also feel the same way. And this is by no means a uncommon thing. There will be many who get into this rut of going to the DWP and then to a place that tells you where to find work. Basically this "Best" which was bought by "Interserve" is doing the job the DWP do. This is something that has made unemployed people feel let down by. Another company being paid to do the job the DWP can already do.
The unemployed do not want to be told how to look for work. We know we can do that. But now we have to get other people to tell us what to do now that are not in the civil servant sector?
So we have 3.53% getting work. It should be 5% but we don't have that from the Government. So what do we do now? If these are failing to get unemployed people like me into work, what chance have we got to gain full term and long term employment? The far right blame the influx of "immigrants" like the Polish and eastern Europeans. But they are getting away from their own country that has worse prospects than the UK itself.
So what can we do? We have been failed not only by the coalition and Mark Hoban MP for employment and pensions has said it isn't. We don't want spin, we want full, unabashed truth.
*the company "Best" that I was not good enough to be in their training programs and wanted me removed. Snobbery in a training scheme? Surely not.
