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Jobseekers and employers are being failed nationwide by Jobcentre employment services displaying a lack of care and support, a think tank has suggested.
The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has found people with qualifications and work experience in specific sectors are being forced into irrelevant industries.
Work coaches and advisers within the service are accused of not doing enough to support candidates in applying for jobs that they are suited to or qualified for.
Melanie Wilkes, one of the report’s authors, is the IPPR’s associate director for work and the welfare state.
She told Sky News: “People are being pressured to take any job regardless of if it meets their circumstances. It’s impossible to sustain that over a period of time so people are cycling between periods of unemployment and periods of work and the jobs they’re getting are insecure, low-paid, [and] with very little opportunity for progression.”
Ms Wilkes said jobseekers’ existing skill sets are not being developed.
“The core issue is that the support people are getting is support in name only,” she said.
“People didn’t feel that they really were getting help or support from their work coach, instead quite a few felt that they were being set requirements to apply for any job.
The think tank said they have heard from jobseekers who are disheartened and frustrated by the process.
The government has what it calls an ABC policy – with a view to helping jobseekers get “Any job first, a Better job next and into a Career”. It’s this approach that the IPPR says is failing.
Ella-Mae Michalski from Hampshire began looking for a job with her higher qualification certificate in social studies.
Her sights were set on a career in the criminal justice system or youth work as she sought out a job related to her field.
But she says she received no tailored support from her adviser and was pushed into…
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