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’s been quite a week for 22-year-old Cait Reilly. After spending 18 months waiting in vain for her phone to ring with the offer of any one of the hundreds of jobs she has applied for since graduating in the summer of 2010 from Birmingham University, these past few days it hasn’t stopped. And all because of two weeks on a government unemployment programme in her local Poundland in King’s Heath, West Midlands. A triumph for the scheme presented by ministers as giving 250,000 claimants on jobseekers’ allowance a helping hand back into the workforce? Not quite. For Reilly has made headlines because she is mounting a legal challenge to what she says was the “forced labour” of being made to stack shelves for free in the discount retailer, or lose her £53-a-week in dole. “I was told it was mandatory. There were five of us sent there. I was the only graduate. We were doing exactly the same work as the paid staff. It makes no sense. If the Government subsidises high street chains with free labour, they don’t have to recruit. It causes unemployment rather than solves it.” What makes the mandatory placement more puzzling, adds Reilly, whose degree was geology, was that going to Poundland meant she had to give up a volunteer post she had at the local Pen Room Museum, part of her plan to gain the experience that would help her along her chosen career path as a curator. “Right now, I would take any job. I have £18,000 in student debts to pay off and the interest is building all the time. That really worries me. But I have plenty of retail experience already on my CV. I didn’t need to go to Poundland. And I was never told I had a choice.” Her adviser at the Job Centre has, she reports, been replaced. The Department of Work and Pensions, which oversees the scheme, has responded to her allegations by insisting that, within reason, such “sector-based work academy” schemes are optional. And Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has in the past robustly defended the programme, pointing out that “half of young people leave benefits after they have completed their placement”. The problem in Reilly’s case seems to be that, as a graduate, her career expectations were different from many other claimants. But she is not, in reality, so unusual. Of those who graduated at the same time as her, in 2010, half were either jobless six months later, or in menial roles. Another survey reports that 38 per cent of graduates have been on the dole after leaving university. And longer-term data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reveals that 28 per cent of 2006 graduates were not in full-time employment three years later, while, among those who were, only 16 per cent of the men were earning over £20,000, and 29 per cent of the women. This last figure is particularly significant since, under new tuition fee arrangements, those embarking from this September on degree courses that will cost up to £9,000 a year will only have to start repaying their tuition fees once their income rises above £21,000. The Treasury, it seems, may be about to take a substantial hit. Reilly remains phlegmatic about her joblessness. “Someone is getting the posts I am applying for, so I have to believe that one day that person will be me. That’s the logic.” Does she regret not tackling something more vocational – law, medicine, engineering – rather than geology? “I did think about that before I started, but I loved the subject and geology can provide a whole range of careers in civil engineering, mining, oil exploration and property. So it was a practical choice.” But of her cohort, she says, only one – “and he got a first” – has got a job that uses his degree. Defending the hike in tuition fees, the Government argues that undergraduates are speculating to accumulate. By taking out loans to pay for a higher education, they are giving themselves the prospect of better-paid careers than school-leavers that will more than justify that investment. However, the Office of National Statistics reported last August that a quarter of graduates are earning less than contemporaries who joined the workforce after A-levels. And even with the other three quarters, the graduate pay premium is shrinking. One factor, it seems, is that the rapid expansion in higher education under Labour has seen the percentage of university-educated workers grow since 1993 from 12 to 25 per cent. And it continues to rise. “I don’t regret going to university,” says Holly Jerreat, 22, who graduated last summer with a 2:1 in languages from Bath, “but with hindsight I might have done a more vocational course. I chose languages because it was a subject I loved and found intellectually challenging. But here I am, still looking for work.” Jerreat, who has returned home to live with her parents in Kent, has filled in “endless application forms” for graduate posts in marketing, advertising and media, and has come very close several times to landing the job of her dreams, but the competition is stiff and openings few and far between. To pay her way in the interim, she has applied “for every job going in our local Bluewater shopping centre. I write off, send in CVs, go in and ask face-to-face, and then get told I am over-qualified.” Currently she is doing a part-time administrative post she got through a family connection. “Basically I do the shredding.” In these hard times for recent graduates, such family connections – much decried by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, as “the exclusive preserve of the sharp-elbowed and the well-connected” – are one way to gain an advantage. “I spent a year and a half doing various temping jobs,” says 25-year-old Howard de Podesta, who graduated in aerospace engineering from Bath, “before getting a job in product design in financial IT off the back of an internship. That is the route many graduates go down now.” People like 24-year-old Kate Ross, who graduated in combined social sciences from Durham in 2009, and then landed a three-month paid internship with a hotel management company with the help of her sister who worked in recruitment. “Having that experience helped me impress my current employer, a property company. Without experience, no one will touch you, however good your degree or your university. You have somehow to find a way to get that experience.” Unpaid internships, though, especially in London and big cities, depend on being able to rely on family for free accommodation and pocket money. Ross squared the circle by taking a part-time post as a live-in au pair, even though she had no formal training in caring for children. “I was actually better off when I was living for nothing there than when I started work properly and had to pay rent on a flat.” And therein is another problem. Even when graduates find jobs, starting salaries are so low that it makes it very hard to stand on your own. “It seems to take friends from university around a year to find a 'proper’ job,” recounts Jerreat, “but they rarely pay more than £18,000. Once you have stated paying back your student loans, which kicks in at £15,000 for my age group, and then pay rent, it really doesn’t leave anything to live on.” The unpaid internship industry is, says Cait Reilly, pretty much a closed book for her. “I think it probably does skew the market against people like me. I live at home, but my parents can’t afford to support me. I have to make a contribution to my living costs. If I had the option of not signing on, I’d take it like a shot. It tars me with the same brush in the eyes of those who see anyone claiming benefits as lazy or scroungers. And yes, I would be prepared to travel and live somewhere else for work, but it would have to be paid for me to afford to be able to do it.” So has her week of making headlines and taking calls helped her job search? “No,” she reports flatly. “Or not yet. Some of my friends think I am mad to go to court, that the legal action will mean that no employer will want anything to do with me, but for me it is an abuse that needs highlighting. The idea that any work experience, however irrelevant and menial, will be beneficial just doesn’t add up.”

'I’m a graduate, get me out of here!’ - Telegraph

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How can geology been seen as non-vocational?

It may not gather the same kind of numbers as other professions (such as medicine) but it can be practical, definitely.

By the by, this kind of issue do prove that French medicine university system (who practice quotas, basically, under the guise of 'selection') is not entirely stupid - it helps make sure that the price of your labour (if you're successful, that is) doesn't get shot down...

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Yeah, I see plenty of geology jobs out there. I guess the experience thing is the bit that's a bummer, unless she specifically wants to be a museum curator to the exclusion of all else, and is turning down perfectly good oil propsecting jobs and stuff like that.

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Unions have called on Britain's biggest high street chains to withdraw from government programmes that make the unemployed work for up to six months unpaid or face losing their benefits.

The call comes as Sainsbury's, one of the UK's largest retailers, confirmed to the Guardian that it has stopped branch managers from taking on jobseekers under the work experience scheme.

The move follows that of Waterstones book chain, which last week announced it had pulled out of the scheme because it did not want to "encourage work for no pay".

Under the work experience scheme, hundreds of thousands of largely young jobseekers will work in charities and private businesses for 30 hours a week, for eight weeks, without pay, and can have their benefits removed if they withdraw. The government has also introduced a plethora of other schemes, such as mandatory work activity, sector-based work academies, and the community action programme, which can force jobseekers to take unpaid work for up to six months as a condition of their benefits.

The schemes are in operation at more than a dozen well-known chains, such as Boots, Tesco, Asda, Primark, Argos, TK Maxx, Poundland and the Arcadia group of stores run by billionaire Sir Philip Green, which includes Top Shop and Burton.

Shopworkers union Usdaw, which represents more than 400,000 workers in high street retail outlets, said it was currently in discussion with a number of major companies about their involvement.

John Hannett, Usdaw general secretary, said: "Usdaw is not opposed to schemes that genuinely aim to give young people appropriate work experience or help long-term unemployed people get back into work, but schemes should be voluntary, participants should receive the rate for the job, and there needs to be transparent checks and balances in place.

"We are in discussions with the participating companies we have agreements with to re-examine their continuing involvement in the […] various schemes."

Hannett added: "The unemployment crisis is never going to be solved by forcing people to work for nothing. What the country needs is a proper strategy for jobs and growth."

The TUC called for companies to pull out and warned that the government-mandated schemes were encouraging more unpaid work rather than creating actual jobs.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "While unemployed people may benefit from short periods of work experience, forcing them to work effectively for free for up to six months is not the way to solve the UK's jobs crisis.

"Not only are the high street names involved […] in danger of exploiting participants, the scheme also poses a very real threat to the jobs and pay of existing workers. It is also far from clear whether the placements actually involve any genuine degree of training or work experience that will be of any use to the unemployed taking part.

"The danger is that [this] is simply encouraging employers to continue using unpaid labour when what they should be doing is recruiting unemployed people into properly paid jobs."

Solicitors from Public Interest Lawyers in Birmingham this week issued letters to the heads of 15 companies to make them aware of legal proceedings they have lodged in the high court challenging the legality of such schemes.

Their client, geology graduate Cait Reilly, is currently arguing in the high court that she was made to work unpaid in Poundland, contrary to the forced labour provisions in the Human Rights Act.

Phil Shiner from Public Interest Lawyers said he welcomed the withdrawal of major high street chains from "exploitative" programmes.

"Some major companies are now waking up and turning their backs on compulsory unpaid labour schemes. We have written to a number of major retailers involved in work-for-your-benefit schemes and asked them whether they intend to continue in light of what the Guardian has reported and we have brought to the attention of the courts.

"Whilst our legal actions are against the Department of Work and Pensions, these household brands bear their own moral and social responsibility to ensure that they have nothing to do with these exploitative and ill-judged programmes."

Sainsbury's, which has more than 1,000 stores in the UK, says it only now participates in the work trial programme, in which people work a maximum of 16 hours a week for four weeks in an actual job vacancy, and can pull out at any point without sanction.

Sainsbury's stressed that the work trials were "entirely voluntary" and, unlike work experience schemes, "candidates did not lose their benefits if they didn't participate".

The supermarket added that it had taken on 4,300 employees through the scheme.

Defending its continued participation in schemes that have elements of compulsion, Tesco said: "We take our responsibility as Britain's biggest private sector employer seriously and are playing our part to help tackle unemployment in these challenging times."

Tesco said that over the last four months around 1,400 people had worked for free for a month as part of work experience in its stores, and since the scheme began 300 jobseekers had gained a job with the company.

Unions call on UK high street giants to halt unpaid work schemes | Business | The Guardian

Yay Sainsbury's, boo Tesco's!

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Oh boo hoo

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Give unto Caesar that what is Caesar's, and lie like hell to keep as much of the rest of your shit as you can.

"If you want something said ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman" Margaret Thatcher

The government's back-to-work scheme appears to be in disarray after Tesco announced it would immediately offer a wage to all benefits claimants working unpaid in its stores, and several big chains reported they were suspending involvement in the programme.

Tesco said that although it was sticking with the coalition's work experience scheme, it would now offer jobseekers a choice of remaining on benefits or taking up paid work with a guarantee of a staff job at the end of the four-week placement if the trial was successful.

Meanwhile, Argos and Superdrug said they were suspending their involvement pending talks with ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the scheme, which has been personally championed by senior coalition figures, is voluntary and that jobseekers would no longer fear having their benefits removed if they pulled out of placements after the first week.

Argos said it wanted "to ensure the scheme is voluntary … [and] no one is disadvantaged by working on this programme". The Arcadia group, which is majority-owned by the billionaire Sir Philip Green, said it would be terminating the pilot scheme at its BHS stores at the end of this month. Pizza Hut was reviewing its limited involvement at five of its stores.

Waterstone's, Sainsbury's and TK Maxx have already withdrawn from the scheme, and in the last few days, Maplins electronics, Matalan clothing stores and several national charities have followed – bringing the number of organisations that have suspended or departed the scheme to more than a dozen.

Other major high street chains told the Guardian they would clarify their positions on Wednesday.

The recent pull-outs came despite a three-day offensive by the Work and Pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, and employment minister Chris Grayling, who branded critics of the scheme "job snobs" and "modern-day Luddites". Grayling described Right to Work protesters who invaded a Tesco store in Westminster at the weekend as "anti-capitalist extremists".

Clegg told the BBC: "I think anyone who wants to condemn a scheme that helps people into work at a time of high unemployment really needs to think hard about their priorities. It is not slave labour. It is not compulsory. It is entirely voluntary."

Previously Duncan Smith had written in the Daily Mail: "Armed with an unjustified sense of superiority and sporting an intellectual sneer, we find a commentating elite which seems determined to belittle and downgrade any opportunity for young people that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notion of a 'worthwhile job'."

The Tesco announcement means 1,500 unemployed people expected to be referred to the company on work experience over the next six months will now be given a choice of whether to stay on benefits and complete the placement unpaid, or accept a paid placement with a guaranteed offer of a job at the end of it if their trial goes well.

Access to work experience is voluntary, but if someone leaves the scheme without "good reason" after the first week, they can lose two weeks' jobseeker's allowance. A Tesco spokesperson said negotiations with the government had been constructive.

Grayling has said he will look at Tesco's proposals, but is not keen to rush any decision. He insisted no one is forced on to the scheme and use of penalties is limited.

A DWP spokesman welcomed Tesco's offer of paid work. "We have an excellent scheme that we know is making a real difference to the job prospects of young people. Tesco have said that they are continuing to be a part of the government's work experience scheme. What they have also said is that they will be delivering an additional offer to young people that will help more people find permanent employment – that has to be a good thing." Richard Brasher, chief executive of Tesco UK, said: "We know it is difficult for young people to give up benefits for a short-term placement with no permanent job at the end of it. So this guarantee that a job will be available provided the placement is completed satisfactorily should be a major confidence boost for young people wanting to enter work on a permanent basis."

He added: "Tesco committed [to] 3,000 work placements under the government's work experience scheme. To date around 1,500 have been delivered. We will offer the choice of paid work and the jobs guarantee to all of the remaining placements we will deliver under the scheme." He said 300 young people who had done work experience with Tesco had already been given jobs.

Superdrug said: "We take our responsibilities as an employer very seriously … We are supportive of any initiative which is voluntary and where candidates do not lose their benefits if they choose not to participate, and are working closely with ministers to clarify the situation. Until then we will not be taking on any new work experience placements under this scheme."

Argos said: "We are in discussion with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure the scheme is voluntary, meeting the work experience needs of the individual, and will keep this dialogue going to ensure no one is disadvantaged by working on this programme."

Arcadia said: "BHS took part in a pilot from November 2011 to the end of February this year within their stores in two regions. Out of the people who went through the scheme, 25% have been offered full employment. We currently have no plans to extend the pilot in BHS beyond the end of this month."

After a protest outside Tesco in Leytonstone in north-east London, Ian Pattison, a Youth Fight for Jobs spokesperson, said his group welcomed the company's move "on the proviso that the work experience scheme is voluntary; participants are paid at least the wage of the existing staff with a guaranteed job at the end, and candidates are allowed to join a trade union". "Tesco's withdrawal should be a sign to other companies and the government that we want real jobs not slave labour."

Work experience scheme in disarray as Tesco and other retailers change tack | Society | The Guardian

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The company at the centre of a police investigation into an alleged abuse of government back-to-work contracts compelled jobseekers to work unpaid in its own offices for at least a month at a time, the Guardian can reveal. In response to a freedom of information request about the company last year, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed that A4e sent jobseekers it was meant to be helping into employment to work in at least two of its own offices in an apparent conflict of interest. The placements, part of Labour's Flexible New Deal scheme, were mandatory and are understood to have lasted for four weeks. Those on benefits were, in effect, forced to work for free for the company or have their benefits stripped. The DWP's list of placements from just one of A4e's offices in Holloway, north London, shows that it sent the unemployed to work at two of its other London offices in Camden and Woolwich. The document also contains a third reference to work in an A4e office. The list also reveals that from the 12 months to late June 2011 the company sent people to work unpaid in Asda, Sainsbury's, Oxfam bookstores and a host of other charities and small businesses. Oxfam and Sainsbury's have since pulled out of unpaid work experience programmes linked to the receipt of benefits. A dozen other major charities and high street chains have also left the programme following protests. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, David Cameron praised work experience for young people. "I think we should encourage companies and encourage young people to expand work experience because it gives people a chance of seeing work and all that involves and gives them a better chance to get a job," he said during prime minister's question time. The prime minister will go further in defence of the government's work experience schemes on Thursday. "We see this in the debate on education, put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid – and it's hailed as a good thing," he will say. "Put a young person into a supermarket for a month's learning, unpaid – and it's slammed as slave labour. "Put a child into a great school run by a local authority – cause for celebration. "Put them into a great school backed by a bank – and that is a cause for suspicion." He urged a "thorough" inquiry on Wednesday into A4e after four of the company's former staff were arrested as part of an ongoing police inquiry at its offices in Slough. A former government official who helped devise Labour's unemployment programmes said he was "very surprised" that A4e had placed the unemployed to work for free in its own company. There is no suggestion that A4e would have received any direct financial reward for placing people in unpaid work experience but the official explained that mandatory placements were partly devised to stop those private companies running back-to-work schemes from "parking" difficult or problematic jobseekers. Apart from being able to gain from unpaid labour, the senior former official, who did not want to be named, said sending jobseekers to work in its offices would help A4e cut down on its overheads as it would not have to spend time on organising placements in outside businesses. The company – owned by families tsar, the millionaire Emma Harrison – has refused to comment on the allegations or explain what work they were made to do and whether it included tasks such as data entry, cleaning or was job shadowing. Harrison has come under pressure to step down from her post since she was appointed by Cameron in December 2010 but on Wednesday a spokesperson for her said she was "staying put". A4e corroborated the veracity of the document and has previously confirmed that companies listed in the freedom of information release have been used by A4e to place jobseekers. The revelation raises the question of where private companies running back-to-work schemes such as Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) and the Work Programme are allowed to place unemployed people. In recent days, ministers and the DWP have insisted that while the "voluntary" work experience scheme operates in high street chains, mandatory placements are always for community benefit. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, employment minister Chris Grayling said: "Where we use mandation in our welfare policies, it will be to do useful work on community projects. We will never mandate anyone to work for a big company. They wouldn't take them if we did." An official tweet from the DWP also backed the claim saying: "The DWP only mandates people for community work #workfare". However, the private company Seetec, which won two contracts to run the MWA scheme in London and the East of England told the Guardian that "community benefit" also includes private companies. In a statement Seetec said: "There are occasions where people taking part in MWA would carry out a work placement with a local employer who may be a private company, but this would be a placement that does deliver community benefit." The DWP has now clarified that private companies can also be included in the definition of "community benefit". Official figures show that 24,000 mostly young jobseekers have been made to do MWA but since this entire scheme is administered by private companies, information on where worked has not been made public. In response to questions about mandatory placements from the Guardian, a spokesperson for Ingeus Deloitte, which administers MWA in the east Midlands and the north-east, said: "We have not sought the permission of MWA placement providers to publish their names so will not be able to issue you with a list at this time. However, I can confirm that our clients are placed with wide range of community-based organisations and charities which benefit the local community, in accordance with the provider guidance issued by DWP." Both Seetec and Ingeus said that they did not place jobseekers on MWA placements within their own company. Official provider guidance for the MWA says "community" benefit can be defined as profit for the person using the unpaid jobseeker in their organisation. Under section 48 of the 2011 official guidance, the third definition of community benefit is described as "working towards the profit of the host organisation, providing that the majority of the role is dedicated towards delivery of benefit to the community". A Labour MP has contacted the Guardian to say they were concerned that the MWA programme had not been scrutinised by the Commons and had passed into law with the "tick of a minister's pen" last year. A spokesperson for the DWP said: "As well as offering jobseekers the chance to develop work-related disciplines and behaviours, DWP specifies that all placements under the Mandatory Work Activity scheme must be of benefit to the local community. This could be in a wide range of roles, including renovating and recycling old furniture, working in a local sports club or supporting charitable organisations. The department also specifies that placements must be additional to any existing or expected vacancies."

A4e compelled jobseekers to work unpaid in its own offices | Politics | The Guardian

It's the default to just assume that other people, through virtue of having been alive, know how life works. Then you come across something like this:

Quote:

"We see this in the debate on education, put a young person into college for a month's learning, unpaid – and it's hailed as a good thing," he will say. "Put a young person into a supermarket for a month's learning, unpaid – and it's slammed as slave labour.

and it takes you several goes to get your head around the idea that people exist who are quite so out of touch with reality (or, frankly, basic economic theory).

I guess if your parents sent you to Eton you must be intelligent, whereas if you grew up on a sink estate and got stuck in a crappy comprehensive then you must be so stupid that putting things on shelves counts as "learning".

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Stacking shelves won’t help career progression | | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Over the last week, we have seen a series of dodgy manoeuvres by the government regarding unpaid retail work experience. All actions that have left me like many others, seriously questioning firstly, their ethics and secondly, how far they are removed from reality.

Due to the severe backlash by protesters, Tesco have now agreed to pay all their ‘work experience’ employees on the governments Back to Work scheme; I still have qualms though. Many other retailers have also pulled out of the scheme including Superdrug, Sainsbury’s, Waterstones and TK Maxx. However, what is shocking is that these decisions didn’t come via a government epiphany that realised not all work experience is valuable, but rather PR damage control from retail giants.

Unemployment in the UK now stands at 2.67 million with youth employment at 1.04 million. Undoubtedly there is a problem. However, getting young people, who Nick Clegg believes are ‘sitting at home’, to stack shelves for free is going to do absolutely nothing for their morale and career progression. Working for free in retail is simply not the same as obtaining a placement in parliament, the media or finance. Having worked both in the media and retail, I can confirm that the two industries are poles apart. Due to the nature of retail, I was able to get a part time job whilst still in sixth form. Within weeks, I knew how to do everything my job entailed including using the tills, replenishing stock and tidying the shop floor. As harsh as it sounds, these jobs are called unskilled for a reason. Unlike jobs in parliament, the media or finance, the initial training period is very short; you are expected to quickly be on par with other weathered staff who know the shop inside out. That said, does the Tesco’s scheme really need to be a 4 weeks stint?

Whilst working in retail, personally I was spoken to like scum by both the staff and customers. I was treated incredibly badly by my manager and this was also the case for many of my young/student colleagues. The tasks expected of me were usually incredibly monotonous (size ordering the stockroom/spacing hangers on the shop floor). As a result the low pay and bad treatment wasn’t enough to keep a large number of my colleagues; the turnover rate was practically that of a revolving door. I soon realised I was the longest standing employee (except management) after just four months. For the hard working unemployed graduate and even non-graduate with alternative career ambitions, the scheme could ultimately be demoralising, thus defeating the point.

By no means do I stand here as an advocate of media, political or finance work experience which are only really taken advantage of by the middle classes (I believe Chris Grayling Smiths calls us job snobs), however, the government’s attempt to convince people that these retail placements are worthwhile is ludicrous. We get equally annoyed when interns are only paid expenses to fill actual posts in professional industries, (Nick Clegg has in the past spoken out against the social damages of unpaid internships), so why is this any different?

These schemes will be aimed at some, but not others. Would any cabinet members advise their children to work for only JSA in retail? I’m speculating, but I think not. I also don’t think their children are waiting to be discovered on X Factor, making Ian Duncan Smith’s point in the Daily Mail about the nature of the unemployed youth rather bizarre. As the majority of the cabinet would have never worked in retail, they have no concept of what working there for free would ask of someone. Like all government policies, they receive more credibility if the people who initiate them have at some stage implemented them.

The ultimate purpose of doing a work placement is to increase skills, and hopefully end up in employment. Iain Duncan Smith mentioned in his article that 300 individuals from a total of 1400 on the Tesco ‘work experience’ were now in employment. This is not an overwhelming success. As I stated before, retail work is unskilled making the nature of the work experience in no way beneficial to some recipients. Retail trainee management programme? Yes. Unskilled, ‘workware’/slave labour work placement? No.

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I'd be far more symapthetic to all this stuff if we were doing something like the Civilian Conservation Corps. My problem with this is that these things don't really let you learn anything useful, and that we are effectively subsidisingpublic companies. Doing a few weeks as a hospital porter, say, would be both publicly useful and more likely to get someone to perhaps find a new interest.

This stuff is always pitched as if it those on these schemes are "refusing work" and holding out for "the perfect job". Neither of these are true; the Jobcentre just doesn't actually find jobs for anyone, and I don't think there are many people refusing to do work when it is available.