It is perhaps unsurprising that, a century on and in essence relatively unchanged, the Jobcentre Plus network is failing to fulfil the needs of both jobseekers and employers.
With an 80% increase in the number of under-25s claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in the past year, the government has made school-leavers a priority. That is vital since failing to gain a first job depletes confidence and makes the process more difficult, and the Jobcentre Plus network can offer them specific help. The bulk of vacancies advertised through Jobcentres are for unskilled and low-skilled workers, yet increasingly those looking for work have specific skills or degrees. In particular, it is evident that the system is not sufficiently flexible to offer an effective service to the number of recent graduates looking for employment.
The current economic climate has seen a larger than usual loss of white-collar jobs, most obviously in the financial sector, but the shake-out among middle managers in general is likely to increase as the public sector absorbs its share of cuts. Many of them will offer experience and skills that can be adapted to use elsewhere, not least in small businesses where an ability to multi-task is especially valuable. Their biggest problem, however, will be finding the firms that can use their talents. If a visit to their local Jobcentre is their first port of call, they are likely to emerge despondent. Research by the Federation of Small Businesses (which claims to employ a larger proportion of previously unemployed people than big business) found that fewer than one-fifth of their members advertised vacancies through Jobcentres and that one-third of those described the service as ineffective. Small businesses with very specialised needs may already have their own sources of staff through local colleges, for example, but the fact that Jobcentres are only the fourth most common way of finding a job in a small business suggests that both employers and potential employees are missing out.
Jobcentre staff will find it productive to have a good understanding of the needs of large employers in their areas, but as the national matchmakers between jobseekers and job providers, they should offer the widest possible range of types of vacancies. With unemployment at a 14-year high and set to rise to three million by the end of the year, competition for every job is fierce.
One problem that small business dread is being swamped with more applications than they can deal with, yet an initial filtering by a Jobcentre would allow only the most appropriate applications to go forward. The increasing numbers of people looking for work should not result in a less personalised service by Jobcentre Plus at the very time that jobseekers and employers need it most. It must move into the 21st century.
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