fellow Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/money/3361394/Jobcentre-staff-strike-as-49000-lose-jobs.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Sun+City JOBCENTRE staff were due to walk out today - as it was revealed 49,000 more people have LOST their jobs. Around 3,000 vital call centre staff are striking for 48 hours - in protest at being worked too hard. The Public and Commercial Services Union said the workers were upset over "excessive monitoring" and pressure to answer more calls. It came hours after news UK unemployment rose by more than 49,000 to 2.5million in the three months to December. Youth unemployment leapt by 32,000 to 951,000. One in five of the country's 16 to 24-year-olds are now out of work. The number of people "economically inactive" - sick, caring for family or "discouraged" workers - hit 9.4million. And campaign group Migration Watch said two in three jobs filled last summer went to foreigners, mainly East Europeans. PM David Cameron admitted rising unemployment was a "huge concern" during a fierce exchange in the Commons. But he insisted there were positive signs. The number of people registering for jobseekers allowance fell by 4,100 to 1.46million in December. And the number of vacancies rose by 18,000 to 480,000. He said: "The biggest task facing this country is to get to grips with the long-term structural problem of youth unemployment. It went up 40 per cent under Labour." But Labour leader Ed Miliband insisted: "The truth is you are cutting too far and too fast and it is British people who are paying the price." Experts warned unemployment was certain to rise as Government spending cuts hit the public sector. The GMB union claimed more than 125,000 council workers already face the axe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Around 3,000 vital call centre staff are striking for 48 hours - in protest at being worked too hard.... And campaign group Migration Watch said two in three jobs filled last summer went to foreigners, mainly East Europeans. The article has solve the problem itself.. give their jobs to hard working Poles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellow Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 The article has solve the problem itself.. give their jobs to hard working Poles. Or give their jobs to any of the people looking for jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longtomsilver Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 Please go easy on these folk in the call centres. I found myself working in one after the job centre I was working in (as an interventionist) merged with another one. The management were deceitful and pretty much conditionied us to working on the phones. First we were doing clerical work (fine) them they put these phones on our desks that had a button called 'avail'. We were then told that it was just in case the contact centres got overwhelmed with calls and for a few months we'd get 1-2 calls a day, one morning management told us that they had 'balanced' our calls on the virtual network and f*inghell I lasted two weeks before walking out. I got monitored on a call (wasn't told about this to begin with) and they used a traffic light system and I scored a red (the call was actually a fax trying to get through and I got marked down for not using the corporate greeting to a fax tone... I asked the girl if she was taking the piss which she wasn't and my manager called me in to her office for a reprimand as I had upset the poor lass so she filed an official complaint, I didn't even sit down to listen to the case and walked out there and then as it was only a £17k job. It is shut in there believe me (the interventionist role was easy though but that stopped me looking for a proper job). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Democorruptcy Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 PM Davlie Cameron admitted rising unemployment was a "huge concern" during a fierce exchange in the Commons. But he insisted there were positive signs. The number of people registering for jobseekers allowance fell by 4,100 to 1.46million in December. Why does Davlie Cameron think that 4,100 figure is good news? Won't those people now have been out of work for 182 days and so no longer eligible for JSA? Where does it say they got jobs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellow Posted January 20, 2011 Author Share Posted January 20, 2011 Why does Davlie Cameron think that 4,100 figure is good news? Won't those people now have been out of work for 182 days and so no longer eligible for JSA? Where does it say they got jobs? Exactly. IMO the JSA figure only shows the rate at which people are being made redundant. It does not show the overall level of unemployment as the people who stop claiming have not necessarily found jobs. The total number of unemployed can be rising even if the number of JSA claimants remains the same or falls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m4rk Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 define irony.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger Woods? Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Please go easy on these folk in the call centres. I found myself working in one after the job centre I was working in (as an interventionist) merged with another one. The management were deceitful and pretty much conditionied us to working on the phones. First we were doing clerical work (fine) them they put these phones on our desks that had a button called 'avail'. We were then told that it was just in case the contact centres got overwhelmed with calls and for a few months we'd get 1-2 calls a day, one morning management told us that they had 'balanced' our calls on the virtual network and f*inghell I lasted two weeks before walking out. I got monitored on a call (wasn't told about this to begin with) and they used a traffic light system and I scored a red (the call was actually a fax trying to get through and I got marked down for not using the corporate greeting to a fax tone... I asked the girl if she was taking the piss which she wasn't and my manager called me in to her office for a reprimand as I had upset the poor lass so she filed an official complaint, I didn't even sit down to listen to the case and walked out there and then as it was only a £17k job. It is shut in there believe me (the interventionist role was easy though but that stopped me looking for a proper job). I've met a few call centre managers and a couple of call centre owners in my time. They have all been scum. I once had to sit with 2 owners all through dinner on a Mark Warner holiday. Wide boys done good . They thought of their employees as lesser, disposable beings to be used up and discarded. They weren't joking around, or involved in hyperbole. Really quite disturbing. The sorts of people who would get into the death camp business if it were available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruffneck Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Only going to be worked harder now they've cut 9000 jobcentres jobs. This is one union protest i am in support of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Exactly. IMO the JSA figure only shows the rate at which people are being made redundant. It does not show the overall level of unemployment as the people who stop claiming have not necessarily found jobs. The total number of unemployed can be rising even if the number of JSA claimants remains the same or falls. indeed. the unemployment figures shows those that are out of work, yet are available for work and claiming JSA... they dont include people who are not available for work. so the maths itself is dodgy......it is very possible for an improvement to show and yet the unemployment remains unchanged. take a population of two....one is working one is unemployed but looking for work and claiming JSA....the rate is 50% unemployed. ie 1 person at work, and 1 person at work and in the "available workforce". Now the unemployed person falls off the "claiming JSA" stat, we now have an "available workforce" of 1 and none unemployed. 100%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 As somebody who has always rushed to sign on for the free money every time I have had a period of (voluntary) unemployment I can say that Job Centre staff have never come close to helping me to get another job, just wasted half an hour of my time every fortnight stepping through one clearly unsuitable vacancy after another. Though they usually had the decency to apologise for wasting my time; it's the procedures I blame and not them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveat Mortgagor Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 I can say that Job Centre staff have never come close to helping me to get another job, just wasted half an hour of my time every fortnight it's the procedures I blame and not them. Too tue. About 3 years ago I had issues with both the Job Centre and BT. Talking to the lower level beings got me nowhere so i decided to e-mail the chief executives both organisations. The then BT C.E. was Ben Verwaayen. His office called me within 24 hours of sending the e-mail, issued instructions to resolve the problem, and called me again about 3 days later to ensure that the underlings had done their job and I was happy with the outcome. By contrast, Leslie Strathie (the C.E of Job Cntre Plus) did not respond immediately. In fact about 3 months later (when I had given up hope of hearing anything) i recieved an e-mail that missed the points I raised in my initial e-mail so badly that it might as well have been an auto generated out of office reply - at least I would have got that much quicker. The points I wanted to make to the job centre all revolved around how overtime they have and diminished the efficacy of the jobcentre plus websiite search function. Working in recruitment I have used this website since it was launched. Alas 3-4 years ago they made changes to the way adverts are laid out. The very first line of the advert will now read...... This advertisement has ben placed on behalf of XYZ recruitment who are operating as an employment agency / employment business. The reason they put that line in is to ensure that all candidates are aware whether or not they are applying for a perm job or a temp job. Alas very few people using the job centre website know that the word 'agency' denotes a perm job and if it says 'business' its a temp job. The job centre drones merely state that they have to make sure a candidate is aware of the nature of the job, it is a legal requirement. yet in my experience not only are candidates confused by the wording, many job centre staff are as well, this was especially true when the change was first introduced. The second downside of this is that the JC insist this incredibly important line must be the very first line of the job description. The problem this causes is that candidates scan through lots of different jobs when doing a job search and become weary of reading the same blurb and dont read on to discover what the job description and skill experience requirements are for each specific role that is being advertised. As such, there was and still is a massive increase in the number of people who ring about a job for which they do not possess the basic skill set or experience. Many, many many (diod I say many?) people have simply given up reading about jobs before they phone up to apply. I know the reason for this is directly linked to reading the same old sh!t in every advert. And alas, the increased number of rejections they have and constantly being told they do not suit the role must be damaging for their morale. I put the above comments in an e-mail along with a bit of praise for how effective the site has been in the past and could be again in the future. I appealed to them to be more direct about whether a role is temporary or permanent, and / or to move the line to the end of the advert in order to avoid detering candidates from reading job descriptions. The response I got from the Job Centre was ' we are required by law to ensure that it is clear to candidates whether or not they are applying for a temporary or permanent job'. We are happy that you have had good experience of using the job centre and we are sure you will understand the changes we have made and how they have improved our service to employers and our clients.' Aaaaargh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babesagainstmachines Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 Signing on used to be taking a record of what you had done to the Job Centre at a set time, with the staff doing a search to tell you what jobs they had on their system (normally useless if you have any qualifications). Signing on is currently being at home at a set time once a fortnight for a 30 second call from an overworked "advisor" who says how is it going, then puts the phone down if you actually have anything to say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longinthetooth Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I finished my 18 month Fixed Term Appointment as a new claims advisor at a Jobcentre last Wednesday, They are so inundated with claims that the Jobcentre I worked at had to open yesterday (Saturday) to take new claims paying the remaining permanant advisors double time to work. My District Manager was given the option to retain temporary staff but refused. I'll be signing on myself tomorrow. My experience of working at a Jobcentre was that the 'shop floor' workers are generally a decent bunch (apart from a few who would be at home working as Nazi concentration camp guards) but managers are, on the whole, cretins concerned only with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and dont give a toss about the people who work for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 The response I got from the Job Centre was ' we are required by law to ensure that it is clear to candidates whether or not they are applying for a temporary or permanent job'. We are happy that you have had good experience of using the job centre and we are sure you will understand the changes we have made and how they have improved our service to employers and our clients.' Aaaaargh! I had a similar experience with the Royal Mail, I was concerned that with subdision of houses in my street there were now three properties with the same number as mine. And post was going astray because of companies' poor addressing so I suggested they might want to look at dividing the postcode. The reply came back along the lines of they were sorry that the postman was such an idiot. As you say, standard reply, box ticked, no help at all. I finished my 18 month Fixed Term Appointment as a new claims advisor at a Jobcentre last Wednesday, They are so inundated with claims that the Jobcentre I worked at had to open yesterday (Saturday) to take new claims paying the remaining permanant advisors double time to work. My District Manager was given the option to retain temporary staff but refused. I'll be signing on myself tomorrow. My experience of working at a Jobcentre was that the 'shop floor' workers are generally a decent bunch (apart from a few who would be at home working as Nazi concentration camp guards) but managers are, on the whole, cretins concerned only with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and dont give a toss about the people who work for them. KPIs. If you can't measure it you can't manage it. The mantras of the incompetent manager and the lazy board. Along with always paying lip service to "increased efficiency" but knowing so little about the business that they wouldn't know genuine efficiency if it came up and bit them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_ichikawa Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 KPIs. If you can't measure it you can't manage it. The mantras of the incompetent manager and the lazy board. Along with always paying lip service to "increased efficiency" but knowing so little about the business that they wouldn't know genuine efficiency if it came up and bit them. Oh man... btw ever as an accountant heard of the AVN? Added value network... these people are absolutely OBSESSED with KPIs. I remember when Nigel bought into the AVN. Everything was going OK as we managed stuff fine (even though the workload was heavy due to the dept being understaffed). They started adding all sorts of stuff like we had to try to sell people something over the phone each time we called them for a clarification like what cheque 100008 happened to be or something. You were marked down if you didn't sell them anything... It got even worse as they introduced unattainable bonus systems. Which was the start of the 100% staff turn over rout. It's funny in a sad way as they custom built a massive office complex but have about 13 staff between 8 partners. All they do now is outsource completely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lumpommer Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Could any one actually tell me / hazard a guess to how many people in this country of circa 60 million are actually unemployed. I beleive the official govt figures are 2.5 million but I think these figures are fiddled and the actual is closer to 5-6million. Everyday I see hundreds of people who appear that they are not working and are kids in 6th form and students in further education included in these figures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_ichikawa Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Could any one actually tell me / hazard a guess to how many people in this country of circa 60 million are actually unemployed. I beleive the official govt figures are 2.5 million but I think these figures are fiddled and the actual is closer to 5-6million. Everyday I see hundreds of people who appear that they are not working and are kids in 6th form and students in further education included in these figures. About 29 million people are employed, back of a fag packet, lets say: 12.5 million children 12.5 million OAPs 5 million in higher education. thus 49% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Oh man... btw ever as an accountant heard of the AVN? Added value network... these people are absolutely OBSESSED with KPIs. I remember when Nigel bought into the AVN. Everything was going OK as we managed stuff fine (even though the workload was heavy due to the dept being understaffed). They started adding all sorts of stuff like we had to try to sell people something over the phone each time we called them for a clarification like what cheque 100008 happened to be or something. You were marked down if you didn't sell them anything... It got even worse as they introduced unattainable bonus systems. Which was the start of the 100% staff turn over rout. It's funny in a sad way as they custom built a massive office complex but have about 13 staff between 8 partners. All they do now is outsource completely. Ken, no I haven't. Bar my three years audit training I haven't worked in practice and wouldn't consider it. I'm sure some are better than others but I like being part of a company that does something other than sell accountancy services. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_ichikawa Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Ken, no I haven't. Bar my three years audit training I haven't worked in practice and wouldn't consider it. I'm sure some are better than others but I like being part of a company that does something other than sell accountancy services. Heh I never managed to make the leap out of practice.... I sort of leaped and splattered on the ground Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Heh I never managed to make the leap out of practice.... I sort of leaped and splattered on the ground Ha ha. Well I'm sure it was spectacular and a motorbike was involved! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happy_renting Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Too tue. About 3 years ago I had issues with both the Job Centre and BT. Talking to the lower level beings got me nowhere so i decided to e-mail the chief executives both organisations. The then BT C.E. was Ben Verwaayen. His office called me within 24 hours of sending the e-mail, issued instructions to resolve the problem, and called me again about 3 days later to ensure that the underlings had done their job and I was happy with the outcome. By contrast, Leslie Strathie (the C.E of Job Cntre Plus) did not respond immediately. In fact about 3 months later (when I had given up hope of hearing anything) i recieved an e-mail that missed the points I raised in my initial e-mail so badly that it might as well have been an auto generated out of office reply - at least I would have got that much quicker. The points I wanted to make to the job centre all revolved around how overtime they have and diminished the efficacy of the jobcentre plus websiite search function. Working in recruitment I have used this website since it was launched. Alas 3-4 years ago they made changes to the way adverts are laid out. The very first line of the advert will now read...... This advertisement has ben placed on behalf of XYZ recruitment who are operating as employment agency / employment business. The reason they put that line in is to ensure that all candidates are aware whether or not they are applying for a perm job or a temp job. Alas very few people using the job centre website know that the word 'agency' denotes a perm job and if it says 'business' its a temp job. The job centre drones merely state that they have to make sure a candidate is aware of the nature of the job, it is a legal requirement. yet in my experience not only are candidates confused by the wording, many job centre staff are as well, this was especially true when the change was first introduced. The second downside of this is that the JC insist this incredibly important line must be the very first line of the job description. The problem this causes is that candidates scan through lots of different jobs when doing a job search and become weary of reading the same blurb and dont read on to discover what the job description and skill experience requirements are for each specific role that is being advertised. As such, there was and still is a massive increase in the number of people who ring about a job for which they do not possess the basic skill set or experience. Many, many many (diod I say many?) people have simply given up reading about jobs before they phone up to apply. I know the reason for this is directly linked to reading the same old sh!t in every advert. And alas, the increased number of rejections they have and constantly being told they do not suit the role must be damaging for their morale. I put the above comments in an e-mail along with a bit of praise for how effective the site has been in the past and could be again in the future. I appealed to them to be more direct about whether a role is temporary or permanent, and / or to move the line to the end of the advert in order to avoid detering candidates from reading job descriptions. The response I got from the Job Centre was ' we are required by law to ensure that it is clear to candidates whether or not they are applying for a temporary or permanent job'. We are happy that you have had good experience of using the job centre and we are sure you will understand the changes we have made and how they have improved our service to employers and our clients.' Aaaaargh! I find this an interestind post. Do you know what they actually do with these Job Decriptions? They are available over the internet, as thermal paper printouts from JobCentre customer terminals, and as printouts handed out on sheets of A4 to Jobseekers when signing on. You may well have crafted a detailed job description, but the A4 sheet is mostly white space. The Job Description is truncated to six lines, each only half the page width. This means that the preamble about "employment agency / employment business" is pretty well all that the Jobseeker gets; the rest of the Job Description is cut short in mid-sentence. I know this because I complained when I was unemployed several years ago, and as my daughter is now not working she gets handed similar garbage. My complaints were met with little more than shrugs from the drones. I doubt they are bothered about pointing out the obvious flaws in the system to their superiors. It seemed that many rarely bothered to read what they were handing out; there is no quality control. As long as they hand out a sheet of paper, it's "Tick - Job done" as far as they are concerned. The thermal printouts from the EDS customer terminals are similarly truncated. The Internet access is better (assuming you can afford Internet access) but Jobsonline has been transferred to direct.gov.uk - and searching for the full details of a job using the number on the sheet of A4 often doesn't work. Most have seen the comedy sketch from Little England - "Computer says no." You may not know that it was originally inspired by Jobcentres. Jobcentres are a shambles and a waste of time and taxpayer's money. They have not been fit for purpose for years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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