UK | Unpaid work experience | Boots leaves scheme for long-term unemployed

Boots says it is withdrawing from the government’s scheme to help the long-term unemployed find work.

It comes on the same day that ministers had to drop sanctions from a separate scheme that offers work experience to younger jobseekers.

Boots said that it would no longer be offering any new placements on the work programme, because it contained an element of compulsion.

State benefits could be cut if people refused to join the scheme.

The trade body for the groups delivering the work programme says Boots is the first company to pull out.

In a statement, Boots said that some stores had provided work experience placements under the programme to a small number of individuals but as it was company policy never to participate in schemes which compel people to work, “it would no longer be offering any new placements”…

via BBC News – Boots leaves scheme for long-term unemployed.

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