The Socialist 1 February 2012

Fight this profit-mad system

Bankers bonus scandal - Fight this profit-mad system

Trade unionists and socialists prepare for May elections

What is the point of Labour MPs?

Dead end in Davos

Them & Us

Don't let the racist EDL divide us

Disabled protesters demand scrapping of 'welfare' bill

Haringey takes action against academies

Coventry: Re-elect Dave Nellist

NUS: name the day for student walkout

Save Derbyshire youth services!

Only one in six 'vacancies' real

Tough conditions for agency workers

South East Wales youth plan new campaigns

EU summit - no capitalist solutions to the spiralling eurozone crisis

Interview: the Tunisian revolution one year on

Pensions battle: Unions must campaign for coordinated strike action in March

London Docklands transport workers win Olympics deal

Unison pensions cowardice

Remploy workers fight privatisation

Jet tanker drivers continue strike action

Workplace news in brief

Debate: Should socialists support the HS2 rail line?

Are the Greens a real alternative?

Smacking not the answer

Obituary: Gwenda Beishon

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Only one in six 'vacancies' real

A Jobcentre Plus worker, West Midlands

Jaime Davies points out in 'Con-Demned to unemployment' (Issue 702) that there are only 463,000 job vacancies advertised with Jobcentre Plus for 2.5 million unemployed people.

463,000 is the figure Chris Grayling, the Tory minister, uses to beat the unemployed with. In fact only about one in six of these vacancies is a real job.

In my office 150 adverts were placed in our catchment area in one week. Only 25 of these were placed on a statistical return to our district office. When district queried this difference, staff explained that those were the real job vacancies. The other 125 were duplicates, agencies, commission only or catalogue and leaflet distribution.

Employers are now able to input vacancies directly to the jobs database. It is extremely difficult to get 'rogue' employers banned from advertising with Jobcentre Plus, although we have managed this with a couple of double-glazing firms, including one that pays commission only and paid a worker £1 for obtaining £40,000 worth of sales!

There were ten or eleven vacancies a couple of months ago, each for an interpreter in a different African language and for the London area - hardly a series of jobs appropriate for a large number of applicants.

People who come in to use the job points in my Jobcentre are always complaining that they do a local search and it comes up with London, Glasgow, Southampton or somewhere else hundreds of miles away. This is because, if there is nothing local, the system provides 'near matches'.

So, not only are there only a sixth of the vacancies, there may be none in your area.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Bankers bonus scandal - Fight this profit-mad system