What happens when 'workfare' replaces paid workers?

[janieluk]

Originally published at Welfare to work, web stuff, other. You can comment here or there.

Apropos of this article in the Guardian, I've been musing over the impact of mandated work experience placements on the labour market, specifically those that end up replacing paid jobs.

Comments

[janieluk]

My embloggening brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, these lyrics don't scan. Damn right, my meter's not bland.

[janieluk]

Y'know writing's kind of a high. Time to get in the groove again I think.

[abigailb]

I'd love to see some more information about vacancies. Right now it's fairly easy to find an overall vacancy figure, but it's not broken down very well, and it's not clear how long each vacancy remains open for. If the hard-to-fill vacancies are all engineers or doctors then it doesn't matter how many people have been trained to stack shelves, does it?

Also, we've just abolished the default retirement age! So that's presumably had an effect as people stay in-position for a few more years, which will eat up a couple of years of intake at the other end of the career ladder.

[janieluk]

Hullo! Your first point sounds like you're talking about structural unemployment, i.e. the idea that the reason unemployment's high might be that people have the wrong skills (or are in the wrong places). There are always going to be some professions that have difficulty finding enough people. Parts of the IT industry are the obvious ones at the moment. Evidence is that this imbalance isn't a major cause of current unemployment levels though

[abigailb]

Structural yes - I would even wonder if current levels of unemployment aren't the natural levels, and the previous figures only achieved because of the bubble.

REC seem to charge corporate amount for their reports. ONS have lots of stuff but because it doesn't distinguish between casual and skilled work in the same sector it is frankly bobbins.

Googling for "skills gap" provides some results - shortages of electricians, plumbers, chefs - these are not the sort of hyper-casual things I'm seeing in mandatory workfare placements, but more suited to apprenticeships. I wonder if the massive expansion of university education hasn't results in a lot of people becoming reluctant to write off their degree and do that sort of thing. Meanwhile; there's also a shortage of maths/science/engineering graduates... So we're putting up the fees across the board and closing down chemistry departments.

[janieluk]

These two slightly US-centric posts by Paul Krugman lay out what seems like a reasonable way of telling if the cause of current unemployment is structural. The natural level of unemployment is way beyond my level of understanding, though I'd be tempted to say that as long as there's stuff that needs doing that isn't being done, then there's room for more people to spend time doing that. It may bump into the lump of labour fallacy again.

[xkad]

Yes, agreed.

And the way that companies higher up the ladder are taking on increased numbers of unpaid interns is exacerbating the same problem of lack of real job creation. It also may be creating greater class divisions among the under 25's as only those with well-off parents can afford to take internships.

On retirement age, this case sadly means that recent the progess now looks like tokenism.

Also: my first LJ comment for years!

[janieluk]

Hello there! Yup, would agree that unpaid internships don't help matters and relate to this in some ways.

[friend_of_tofu]

I think you've been quite restrained on the topic, really. The temptation to hell and swear is massive.

Gotta say, I think I'm probably the furthest I've ever been from economic libertarianism at this point in my politics. I've really gone much softer on the state over time.

Oh, and my first LJ comment for ages as well!