UK / The current chaos at Jobcentres

The country’s policy for dealing with unemployment is inherently built for the good years, and presumes at its core that unemployment is a social or personal failure. Both discourse and policy fail to fundamentally account for an era of low growth and persistent high unemployment, as well as the blurred lines between the unemployed workforce and those in low-paid work. As such, policy is ill-equipped to support the unemployed workforce of post-crash Britain, a fact which has important implications for the role of job centres.

The current chaos

Jobcentres and their staff are under an immense amount of pressure. Those who are unemployed rely on them to assist in finding a job, and for advice and training in a difficult labour market. Those people, who have just lost their job or recently left education, and are walking for the first time into their local job centre, will see first-hand the consequences of policy failing to get with the times, and to be more responsive to the needs of the new unemployed citizen. Both the current system and the reforms being made to it focus on economic incentives, transactions and conditionality, which together reinforce an already-malign and potentially counterproductive top-down relationship which society and the state has with those who are unemployed.

However, by building the job centre around the citizen, who by right holds the responsibility and decision-making power over their situation, reforms can move on to the right track. Vital work on ‘relational welfare’ has already been undertaken, offering solid policy foundations for reforms to the job centre, while pilots which put individuals in charge of their situation appear at this stage to have been positive. And so, when reforms to the job centre are being looked at, the solid foundations of citizen-centred welfare are there from which to draw, with real policies both pitched and already piloted.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Everyday unemployment | Progress | News and debate from the progressive community.