Slashdot Mirror
UK Government To Spy On Computers of the Jobless
An anonymous reader writes "Jobseekers will be offered the chance to look for work through the new Universal Jobmatch website, which automatically pairs them up with opportunities that suit their skills after scanning their CVs. It will also allow employers to search for new workers among the unemployed and send messages inviting them to interviews. However, their activities may also be tracked using cookies, so their Job Centre advisers know how many searches they have been doing and whether they are turning down viable opportunities. Iain Duncan-Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the scheme would 'revolutionize' the process of looking for work. He said anyone without a job after signing up to the scheme would be lacking 'imagination.'"
I appreciate that the headline just copies that of the original article, but I really do expect better of Slashdot. (I know, I know, I must be new here.)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
in Germany jobless people have to report any application for a job to the agency and they have to apply for a certain amount of jobs per month or they get no welfare. Still people say it is not enough and unemployed people should be a workforce of the government to clean parks etc. -.-
Is this using a new definition of spying that I'm not aware of? Tracking sure but spying is a bit dramatic.
I just can't be bothered.
There's an opinion on-line that the UK is turning in to some sort oppressive totalitarian state. It seems like this summary was written with this view in mind. It makes a number of errors of omission.
The article says it's opt-in! It only applies to that web-site too. That's obviously a huge omission to make from the summary. The summary seems to imply that the government would snoop on all traffic of a job-seeker and it was mandatory.
Finally, people who are claiming Job Seekers allowance are requesting support from the government while they look for a job. It's not totalitarian to suggest that we ensure that they are actually looking for a job!
As a taxpayer and a liberal democrat, it's something I support!
This entire scheme is crazy. Why?
Number one: not everyone has a computer in the UK believe it or not, particularly the over 40's.
Number two: every government run JobXYZ service only has minimum wage crap which is usually supported by government schemes or has chains of hundreds of applicants. Hiding these jobs behind a web site is just going to hide the problem.
Number three: it's obviously a cost cutting exercise so they can stick some more booths in the JobCentre sites and get rid of more staff.
Number four: There aren't actually enough positions to fill in the UK. We've automated or contracted everything out to other countries. People will be unemployed as they are not needed to keep the cogs oiled. Solving the employment problem in the UK is only possible by loom smashing now.
Number five: the government manage to screw up every IT project out there. This will be another victim.
argh.
They want a workforce, but they have to assume it'll be unskilled. They can't put these people to work on virtually anything done by local councils as the unions will go ape and strike. A whole load of demeaning labour is already being done by people on community service sentences and there would be riots if they started treating unemployed people like criminals. That leaves them with one option - making deals with companies in the private sector for cheap workers, effectively being a US-style Welfare to Work scheme. Why does that notion fill me with dread?
Fair enough if you don't want to be a street cleaner or janitor... But why then should the government (ie the rest of us taxpayers) give you free money?
If you don't want to do an unpleasant job, then you should find yourself a better one, you should have no right to simply sit on your ass at the expense of everyone else until the perfect job comes along. Instead work hard at your unpleasant job and perhaps study part time so you can learn something better.
People in other countries have it far worse, in many places the government won't do anything for you at all if you haven't got a job, so your choice is between picking up trash from the street or having to sleep among that trash.
Incidentally, picking up trash isn't that bad of a job... You get gloves, a stick with a grabbing claw on the end, brushes etc so it's not like you actually have to get covered in filth. You just walk around pushing a trashcan on wheels, and any trash you see you pick up with your claw and put in the trashcan. You even get a sense of satisfaction because the streets look a lot better when they aren't covered in trash.
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I think a payment card (which the article also discussed) is way overdue and would cut down benefit fraud and stop people using money they should be spending on food using it to spend on drugs, booze, cigarettes or the geegees.
This makes a strong argument for unplugging from technology altogether. I realize this article is probably a whole lot of sensationalism but it also serves as a slippery slope warning. If laws were enacted similar to this one, I would go old fashioned in my job search altogether. The reality of the situation is that only a small number of people will find ways to take advantage of a system. Should the majority be punished for the transgressions of the few? No, that is tyranny.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
If you pay taxes for 20 years then need a hand paying for bills for a few months, getting 50 / week back out of those 20 years taxes does not equal "free money".
Studying part time for certified courses costs money as well. Studying using free resources either requires access to the internet (costs money for net connection) or libraries (government seems to be closing them down, our local one isn't open on Saturdays any more, means no parent and child reading sessions if the parent is in work....).
Most EU countries got two systems, unemployment (typically limited in time and only available to the previously employed) and welfare (typically lower in amount but available to all who qualify by their need). It is NOT that easy to get kicked out of wellfare because it is after all meant to be a safety net to prevent people from sliding into absolute poverty.
The whole getting the unemployed to work is however a bit of a sham. For instance it has been revealed that programs to get mothers working COST more then they deliver. If it costs 100k to get a person to work for 40k, that is just pointless really. It looks nice in employment statistics but basically the state is subsidizing the employer and the state is you the taxpayer.
And if moms who work can't volunteer anymore at school and the school now has to hire people to do those tasks, you are even deeper in the red. And if they got to send their kids to subsidized daycare so they can work, that is even more money down the drain.
Always suspect government figures on this subject. The idea to get the unemployed cleaning parks for instance sounds fun. Who is going to pay for all the hardware needed? Transportation? Supervising?
It is often just really cheaper to have people sit at home on a minimum income. Not nice but if you want nice, stay out of politics.
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Around here, you only get unemployment insurance paid under the following conditions: 1. You worked at least 30 hours a week for six months prior at a single job 2. You lost your job "through no fault of your own" - meaning you weren't fired for smoking a joint on the property or something. So part time, short term employees who did a terrible job for the two weeks they worked don't qualify.
The one time I collected unemployment insurance, I had been downsized from a full time salaried position as management in a call center. I was the first of about a dozen management times to be cut over the next year, and then they laid off half the staff because they lost the lease on the giant warehouse they were in and had to squish into an old Winn Dixie grocery story instead. It took me five months to find a comparable position, but that wasn't for want of trying - I applied to nearly a thousand jobs over those five months, and had interviews for at most a dozen.
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