I think I've just been sold into slavery.

[raptor1181]

I agree with the above and can i just point out there are no were near enough jobs out there i applyed for and shelf stacker in tesscos i just want a job and 500 other people applyed for it but i have been in higher education so i shouldnt have to! But i did and paid even more of my dues so now i have a nice job but whats the point of people going into higher ed if you end up working in a basic job and the only way you can get a better job is experence not what degrees you have.

Suprisingly I'm not insensitive to this sentiment as I think sending so many people to university is a waste of time. I would say, however, that studying will prove you're good at academia, it won't neccesarily prove that you're a good worker so doing something to prove your worth is quite useful.

I agree completly but my point more becomes that all those people who are in uni now or are just finshing are coming out into the job sector and having to compete with hundrads of people for a job that they dont really want where there newly gain qulifactions mean nothing or in some cases mean that they cant get the job because they are over qulifided and thats un-fair. I know thats the world we live in but these people are spend years of there lives and lots of money to get qu that wont help the, and my even hinder there abilty to get a job and thats wrong

 

[Shivarage]

No systems perfect, a few crooked bankers will always get paid as just the same a few freeloaders will always end up slipping through the net. By-and-large those at the top of our society deserve the money they own, it's just a recent political fad has been to complain about the herp derp rich, fact is that capitalism will always end up with a few super-rich and that's a good thing as it encourages people to work hard. The current government were elected as you vote for the individual MP, not a whole party.

A few crooked bankers are 100000x the burdon of a few "freeloaders", don't forget those "freeloaders" are just trying to have enough to eat and survive in the poverty trap.

 

[Feoh]

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

 

[Shivarage]

Their taxes have paid for your education and your dole money.

...and the bankers bailouts

...and the mps' allowance

...and the mps' weekly food money worth £400 a month at the least

...and the mps' salary that is 100x yours on top

...and the mps' pay rise

...and the mps' 3 day working week

...and the illegal wars nobody wanted

...and Tesco's labour force

...and the recent top rate tax cut

I think unemployed people are the least of your worries, my dear

 

[wooty]

I'm in the same big bad boat at the moment too, I got laid off about 2 months ago and have also been sent to one of these bullshit courses. Which your not supposed to go on until your out of work for 6 months........but you cant argue with the job center as they have their miserable uninterested finger on the "practical starvation" button.

Just go with the grind my boy, most people linked with the DSS are complete wankers anyway, as long as you dont roll over and take it in the arse from them then you'll still have some respect for yourself./

 

[barbzilla]

but if you know even a little bit about IT you shouldn't have that much trouble finding a job. Even working for staples fixing computers would pay a little money. Or I had a buddy who made extra money on the side fixing peoples computers via craigs list.

Unfortunately this is not the case currently (at least in the US). There are so many unemployed IT professionals out there that the low end companies like Staples, Office Depot, and Best Buy are able to hire on B.A. graduates at close to minimum wage (with some commission benefits.) I have a B.A. and spent two years working in a prison as a sharp shooter before getting a job at Office Depot as a sales/repair agent. I worked for Office Depot for 1 year before having enough money saved up to start my business and advertise (I had been saving for 5 years at that point). As a computer repair shop owner I barely covered my costs and ended up going for a zero storefront solution. I am now a mobile computer repair company (as in I am mobile, not I focus on mobile computers). I also happen to be a carpenter by trade, so I have the added benefit of being able to build custom entertainment centers and desks (probably my largest profit margin) to cover the down time on repair jobs.

So as a student he is unlikely to get a job in the IT field unless the market is vastly different in the UK

 

[Thyunda]

If you don't like the way the country is being run, vote out the "rulers" next election in 2015. I wouldn't give high hopes for them or anyone-else being able to solve the problems you've described in your post though, it's a fact of life that we have to work hard to keep our society afloat and that probably won't change, at-least not until someone invents robots who can do the work for us ;-)

Until that day there's no room in our society for free-loaders, people who genuinely can't find any work or are disabled I don't mind getting benefits since I'd rather not having them starving in the gutter but I don't see why hard-working taxpayers should have to pay for people who have been offered a job but turn it down because they're too lazy or it isn't up to their "standard".

...And yet you're just fine with hard working taxpayers paying for failure

you didn't answer any of my questions and guess what, the current government didn't get voted in so that's your "vote for someone else" idea out the window

There's no room in our society for rewarding failure a hundred thousand times as much as surviving money for a down-on-his-luck unemployed person

I want proper answers or else don't bother replying

No systems perfect, a few crooked bankers will always get paid as just the same a few freeloaders will always end up slipping through the net. By-and-large those at the top of our society deserve the money they own, it's just a recent political fad has been to complain about the herp derp rich, fact is that capitalism will always end up with a few super-rich and that's a good thing as it encourages people to work hard. The current government were elected as you vote for the individual MP, not a whole party.

Or, who, like me, have drifted between two goddamn cities trying to find work and been turned down at every opportunity.
And then the JobCentre have the goddamn nerve to try and take my benefits off me. That did not end well for either party, I assure you.

Freeloaders. Pah.

If you look up at my post you quoted, you'll see that I said "people who genuinely can't find any work or are disabled I don't mind getting benefits". You'd come under the first category.

I haven't been aware of any freeloaders on Jobseeker's Allowance. In fact, it's a major pain to free-load off that, for the OP's reasons. And by their bizarre habit of deliberately cutting people out of their benefits just so it looks like they're getting people into work.

After two years unemployment I've managed a couple of months work at Argos, on behalf of the JobCentre. They also cut me out of my benefit for having a student girlfriend, and there was a whole year of bloody verbal duelling before I even got 40% of what they owed me.

It's a lovely idea - capitalism. If you work hard you get to be one of the super-rich. Well it's a lie. It's actual bollocks. It's not what you know, it's who you know. The fastest way out of unemployment is to be given a hand out. The only way to the upper class is to be taken up there. You can't get there alone. It just does not work anymore. The population isn't helping, either. There is simply not enough work to go around.

 

[Thyunda]

After reading this thread I feel sick. I'll try not to get too political.
A relative of mine had a similar situation, but she only had to apply to at least one job every week.

I'm currently trying to claim disability benefits...

I've seen 4 different goverment "health specialists" who have all classed me as being "disabled" in some way, yet after 2 years I'm still filling in the same forms and having to make daily phone calls to chase up my claim.

Bureaucrats!

Oh yeah, the one thing I didn't cover in my original response was the diabled. If I may be blunt, employers do not want to have to employ people who can only work so many hours a week, have lots of time off sick or need to have special arrangements to work.

I don't see how it is possible for people who've been claiming benefits all their lives and also have special needs in the workplace to effectively compete with the able bodied jobless. I can appreciate the idea in principle though. Plenty of people who become disabled during their working life are fantastic employees who are very committed to their work and easy to retain.

Unhand my avatar.

OT: And yeah. It's because there are so many legal hurdles in hiring disabled people. If anything happens to them, there's a major inquiry and the place has to shut temporarily. You can't ask them for overtime, you're subject to another inquiry if a customer so much as points out that the disabled guy hasn't been for his break yet.

 

[Feoh]

Their taxes have paid for your education and your dole money.

...and the bankers bailouts

...and the mps' allowance

...and the mps' weekly food money worth £400 a month at the least

...and the mps' salary that is 100x yours on top

...and the mps' pay rise

...and the mps' 3 day working week

...and the illegal wars nobody wanted

...and Tesco's labour force

...and the recent top rate tax cut

I think unemployed people are the least of your worries, my dear

The MP's are not paid 100 times your salary on average, they are paid £65,000 a large but not shocking amount considering many could be working in the private sector earning 100k+. I would rather pay a premium for someone who knows what there doing than peanuts for an idiot.

The top tax rate cut was a necessary evil to keep us viable as an international banking destination. We may dislike the tactics of bankers but a large amount of our national revenue comes form them, as does our political clout on the international stage.

Life isn't fair and yes the rich are getting richer but thats always been the case, what really matter is getting people back into gainful employemnt and kickstarting the economy. The few million we spend on the MP's is trivial compared to the billions we spend on unemployemnt and benifits.

 

[T-004]

I'm hearing prople talk about this program like it's a new thing, however it's just "New Deal" dressed up in new red tape!

I was last unemployed just over 5 years ago and had been since I finished college (around 5 years) except for a couple of temp jobs.

In 2004 (having been continuously claiming for 6 months) I was put on New Deal, which meant I was referred to an employment agency where I had to spend 1 day a week for 3 Months doing jobsearch, having my CV criticized and being forced to change it every couple of weeks (despite being told that it was ok now after changing it) and being put on placement.

My placement was at WHSmith, where I worked for 30 Hours a week and only received my benefits in return (less than £150 every 2 weeks at the time)for 3 Months!

It didn't help that the assistant manager, who was my direct supervisor had to go out on medical leave 2 weeks after I started which meant I had to deal with a section handled by 2-3 people by myself.

During my placement a few staff members left, in order to go to uni and such, so after the placement I applied for a job.

They responded by telling me that I was not qualified enough and was lacking in experience and therefore was unsuitable for any of the positions they could offer.

OP - This is pretty much how it's gone for a lot of people I know, but there are the rare few who actually come out of this in good form.

Good luck.

 

[Thyunda]

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

After already posting twice in a row, I wanted to ignore this one, but I can't it's really bloody annoying me.

Congratulations. You found the one goddamn place in the country that'll actively hire people it can't pay minimum wage for. So let me tell you a story. I'm not as qualified as you - I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Took purely academic subjects in college. Probably not the best long-term plan, but hey. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When the time came for university, I couldn't work out what I wanted to do and I decided to try the real world. I live in Stoke-on-Trent. Thirty years ago this place was booming. Now it's dead. There are a few regeneration projects going on - so maybe things will improve over the next three or four years. My friends have gone into mechanics and found work in that.
I use my head and not my hands. This city doesn't like that much. Every job that comes up is bombarded with at least 75 applications in the first hour. The unemployment rate here is ridiculous.

So I left. I went to the city of Lincoln, where I remained equally unemployed until the JobCentre set me up with one of the training agencies the OP mentioned - one called TNG. I can't remember what it stands for. I think it closed down now. They decided to try and get me in with museums and English heritage and such.
I wound up at the oldest church in the city. I became a support worker for the homeless shelter there, taking the £30 every two weeks that TNG passed onto me. The JCP had stopped paying me by this point, because my girlfriend was a student, and every Wednesday morning was supervised jobsearch.
It went nowhere. Despite getting six or seven people into accommodation and work in the couple of months I worked at the shelter, employers still weren't interested. Before Christmas the JobCentre offered me a late opportunity to apply for the Argos Christmas temporary positions with them - and I did, and I was successful.
It ended after Christmas. Four months ago and I'm back in the same rut I was in before.

So yeah. Unemployment is a real goddamn issue and your post was just offensive.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Want to know about slavery? Try working 48 hour weeks, year in year out, lose most of the money in tax, to pay for some guy with an overwhelming sense of his own importance to sit around and watch Jeremy Kyle after you subsidized his university education.


Welcome to world of work, the vast majority of people don't like their job, but they do it anyway. Its called taking responsibility for yourself and paying your own way. Why should the rest of the nation pay for your pride. Do you think the binmen love smelling of rubbish or the woman getting up at 6 am to clean toilets has a fulfilling working life? What makes you more important than them? Their taxes have paid for your education and your dole money.

Actually I call that being a blind ignorant fool.

Yeah we go to college, go in debt. Come out, can't even get a job in the field that we went into debt trying to learn.

Meanwhile, people like Kim Kardashian, The Jersey Shore Cast, ectera are rich for doing absolutely nothing. Seriously not a day goes by I don't wonder why I don't just go make an asshole out of myself for money.

Captcha: Magical Realism

 

[Daystar Clarion]

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

After already posting twice in a row, I wanted to ignore this one, but I can't it's really bloody annoying me.

Congratulations. You found the one goddamn place in the country that'll actively hire people it can't pay minimum wage for. So let me tell you a story. I'm not as qualified as you - I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Took purely academic subjects in college. Probably not the best long-term plan, but hey. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When the time came for university, I couldn't work out what I wanted to do and I decided to try the real world. I live in Stoke-on-Trent. Thirty years ago this place was booming. Now it's dead. There are a few regeneration projects going on - so maybe things will improve over the next three or four years. My friends have gone into mechanics and found work in that.
I use my head and not my hands. This city doesn't like that much. Every job that comes up is bombarded with at least 75 applications in the first hour. The unemployment rate here is ridiculous.

So I left. I went to the city of Lincoln, where I remained equally unemployed until the JobCentre set me up with one of the training agencies the OP mentioned - one called TNG. I can't remember what it stands for. I think it closed down now. They decided to try and get me in with museums and English heritage and such.
I wound up at the oldest church in the city. I became a support worker for the homeless shelter there, taking the £30 every two weeks that TNG passed onto me. The JCP had stopped paying me by this point, because my girlfriend was a student, and every Wednesday morning was supervised jobsearch.
It went nowhere. Despite getting six or seven people into accommodation and work in the couple of months I worked at the shelter, employers still weren't interested. Before Christmas the JobCentre offered me a late opportunity to apply for the Argos Christmas temporary positions with them - and I did, and I was successful.
It ended after Christmas. Four months ago and I'm back in the same rut I was in before.

So yeah. Unemployment is a real goddamn issue and your post was just offensive.

I also ended up with TNG. Worked in a museum here in Nottingham, got some admin experience, archiving, retail etc.


Still can't get a job.

 

[Rastien]

Spoiler

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

Whilst i agree for the most part, it can vary a GREAT deal depending on what part of the country your from. Being out in the sticks in the southwest can be abit of a nightmare, as there tends to be alot fewer jobs and many people applying for them (even more so, for jobs which require a form of qualification).

Even the shitty jobs are over applied for in my area, not that im saying this isn't the situation everwhere but my friend who runs a local shop no company attatched to it just like a paper shop, on average is getting 6 applications a week even though no work is on offer.

It's a shitty climate to say the least everyones just gotta keep there chin up and try not to be to harsh to those looking for jobs as its a really crap position to be in, as im sure you can appreciate.

 

[Xanthious]

Yes, the rich are certainly setting a good example, these people are supposed to be the "most intelligent, responsible and talented" yet all we see is failure, two wrongs don't make a right but the first wrong was by the rich as they are the example at the top.

How on earth did the poor cause the world economy to crash??? I didn't realise it was them who were issuing the bad loans and gambling stupid amounts of money on the stock market, I also didn't realize it was them who get paid millions for failure!

Let's hope you don't lose your job, you might have to actually face the implications of your words.

I agree certain institutions and wealthy individuals that, along with the government, have been guilty of poor decision making. At some point people need to move on and take personal responsibility though. The politics of envy is only going to cause things to get worse.

If people would put as much effort into bettering their own personal situations as they put into screaming from the rooftops about the sins of "the rich" they'd probably be a whole lot better off. If "the rich" are setting a poor example then use that as motivation to be better than they are not an excuse to be just as bad.

Finger pointing isn't going to fix anything in either the big picture or the small one. Again there comes a point when people need to move on and focus on themselves. If they don't really do hate "the rich" so much that's fine, awesome, let them go get a job from a poor person.

 

[Feoh]

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

After already posting twice in a row, I wanted to ignore this one, but I can't it's really bloody annoying me.

Congratulations. You found the one goddamn place in the country that'll actively hire people it can't pay minimum wage for. So let me tell you a story. I'm not as qualified as you - I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Took purely academic subjects in college. Probably not the best long-term plan, but hey. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When the time came for university, I couldn't work out what I wanted to do and I decided to try the real world. I live in Stoke-on-Trent. Thirty years ago this place was booming. Now it's dead. There are a few regeneration projects going on - so maybe things will improve over the next three or four years. My friends have gone into mechanics and found work in that.
I use my head and not my hands. This city doesn't like that much. Every job that comes up is bombarded with at least 75 applications in the first hour. The unemployment rate here is ridiculous.

So I left. I went to the city of Lincoln, where I remained equally unemployed until the JobCentre set me up with one of the training agencies the OP mentioned - one called TNG. I can't remember what it stands for. I think it closed down now. They decided to try and get me in with museums and English heritage and such.
I wound up at the oldest church in the city. I became a support worker for the homeless shelter there, taking the £30 every two weeks that TNG passed onto me. The JCP had stopped paying me by this point, because my girlfriend was a student, and every Wednesday morning was supervised jobsearch.
It went nowhere. Despite getting six or seven people into accommodation and work in the couple of months I worked at the shelter, employers still weren't interested. Before Christmas the JobCentre offered me a late opportunity to apply for the Argos Christmas temporary positions with them - and I did, and I was successful.
It ended after Christmas. Four months ago and I'm back in the same rut I was in before.

So yeah. Unemployment is a real goddamn issue and your post was just offensive.

Actually if you read my post it was targeted at the OP who seemed to be unwilling to even take the basic rudimentary steps he was being offered to find work. I'm sorry that even after all the work you've put in your still unable to find gainful employement but the point is you're still trying to find a job and every step you actively take puts you one step closer towards finding one.

 

[Shivarage]

The MP's are not paid 100 times your salary on average, they are paid £65,000 a large but not shocking amount considering many could be working in the private sector earning 100k+. I would rather pay a premium for someone who knows what there doing than peanuts for an idiot.

The top tax rate cut was a necessary evil to keep us viable as an international banking destination. We may dislike the tactics of bankers but a large amount of our national revenue comes form them, as does our political clout on the international stage.

Life isn't fair and yes the rich are getting richer but thats always been the case, what really matter is getting people back into gainful employemnt and kickstarting the economy. The few million we spend on the MP's is trivial compared to the billions we spend on unemployemnt and benifits.

No worries then, you're paying a premium for an idiot :3

A top tax rate cut was not necessary... at all...

You can't get people back into gainful employment when people don't have money to fund demand that creates investment opportunities, it's simply impossible and giving to a few rich people who already spend all the money they will spend isn't going to fund any more demand.

 

[Thyunda]

This thread is really annoying me.

OP grow the fuck up.

I graduated last June from Edinburgh University studying Nursing, throughout those 4 years I completed working placements both in the UK and overseas. On paper I'm super employable, respectable university, practical course with experience, president of nursing soc, wrote for the uni newspaper, hell I?m pretty good looking to boot.

However when it came to finding jobs, I was up shit creek. There are next to no nursing jobs in the country especially for new starters; which is especially irritating when people go on about 'how badly we need nurses' and 'how they can?t believe I haven?t found a job'.

So what did I do, OP what did I do? I signed up for milkround.com, prospects etc. checked NHS jobs daily, I looked outside my field and applied for every grad scheme going.

Then after my cash ran out I signed on, and met a really great job advisor who helped me rewrite and edit my CV and swung it so I could attend some basic admin courses to help look for office jobs.

BTW the 10 actions for finding jobs in 2 weeks is so easy it?s not even funny, an action can include 'checking the newspaper for jobs' not actually applying for one, it?s pathetic. In reality once you have your CV sorted you can bulk apply online for 10-20 jobs in about an hr. If I had my way it would be apply for at least 1 job per day.

In the end he found me a shop job on the new Stratford Olympics site at boots (think Walgreens for the non UK peeps) that job fell through at the last min but they emailed me a link to the boots jobs site and I applied to a tonne of places there and got a number of interviews, which ended up with me being employed in Kings Rd boots; because, and I quote: "I wore a shirt, could make eye contact and speak fluent English, in full sentences". Yes shop work is crap but I met some great people there. The pay was alright £7.16 an hr and I had the time to apply for other jobs and start working on a HR course. Most importantly I had self respect.

I've just left boots as I?ve found my first nursing post (it?s only a 6 month cover but it?s a great opportunity for my CV). In the interview one of the first things they commented on was the fact I?d been in current employment, even if it was outside my field.

OP there are jobs out there, all you have to do is accept that they might not be to your liking. No-one is saying you have to work in your fist job forever it?s just 'for now'. No one likes a whiney drama queen OP.

After already posting twice in a row, I wanted to ignore this one, but I can't it's really bloody annoying me.

Congratulations. You found the one goddamn place in the country that'll actively hire people it can't pay minimum wage for. So let me tell you a story. I'm not as qualified as you - I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Took purely academic subjects in college. Probably not the best long-term plan, but hey. It seemed like a good idea at the time. When the time came for university, I couldn't work out what I wanted to do and I decided to try the real world. I live in Stoke-on-Trent. Thirty years ago this place was booming. Now it's dead. There are a few regeneration projects going on - so maybe things will improve over the next three or four years. My friends have gone into mechanics and found work in that.
I use my head and not my hands. This city doesn't like that much. Every job that comes up is bombarded with at least 75 applications in the first hour. The unemployment rate here is ridiculous.

So I left. I went to the city of Lincoln, where I remained equally unemployed until the JobCentre set me up with one of the training agencies the OP mentioned - one called TNG. I can't remember what it stands for. I think it closed down now. They decided to try and get me in with museums and English heritage and such.
I wound up at the oldest church in the city. I became a support worker for the homeless shelter there, taking the £30 every two weeks that TNG passed onto me. The JCP had stopped paying me by this point, because my girlfriend was a student, and every Wednesday morning was supervised jobsearch.
It went nowhere. Despite getting six or seven people into accommodation and work in the couple of months I worked at the shelter, employers still weren't interested. Before Christmas the JobCentre offered me a late opportunity to apply for the Argos Christmas temporary positions with them - and I did, and I was successful.
It ended after Christmas. Four months ago and I'm back in the same rut I was in before.

So yeah. Unemployment is a real goddamn issue and your post was just offensive.

Actually if you read my post it was targeted at the OP who seemed to be unwilling to even take the basic rudimentary steps he was being offered to find work. I'm sorry that even after all the work you've put in your still unable to find gainful employement but the point is you're still trying to find a job and every step you actively take puts you one step closer towards finding one.

Terribly sorry, I must have misinterpreted it as the usual "If you're not working, you're just being picky."

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well, there's actually two ways of looking at this.

One is that as we're all talking on this forum, we probably have it better than most of the world's population. We're not starving or getting killed in violent uprisings or living on the street. Those are positive things. If your worst problem in life is crappy employment prospects, you're doing alright on the relative scale of human deprivation. And the economy is in a horrifying state in many nations, so letting the social safety network prop you up when you're able of body and mind seems a little shady and not particularly honorable.

The other way of looking at this is that we're biologically geared to never be particularly satisfied with our lot in life, so telling people they've got it good really never makes them feel good, they're always going to be striving for that next rung on the ladder. Our personal tragedies still have weight to us no matter how bad someone else might have it by comparison, so it's a tad disingenuous to flog someone for their problems while still holding tight to our own (which we all do). And while the OP may be making a grandiose statement when he moans about slavery, the current state of minimum wage employment in the US is NOT PRETTY. I read this article a few weeks ago and it was quite the eye opener:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

...and really? I don't blame ANYONE for being depressed/angry about ending up in a situation like that. You only get one life, and you'd be amazed how quickly a situation like that can derail your health/mental well being. And once Humpty Dumpty is broken, it's not always such a simple thing to put him back together again.

So I'm not going to join the crowds calling for the OP's blood and demanding he sack up and face his godawful situation with a chipper smile. It may not be a nightmare compared to the suffering of some, but it's his nightmare, and I'm willing to bet it'd be a nightmare for quite a few people in this discussion, too. A little compassion costs nothing.

 

[Rastien]

Well, there's actually two ways of looking at this.

One is that as we're all talking on this forum, we probably have it better than most of the world's population. We're not starving or getting killed in violent uprisings or living on the street. Those are positive things. If your worst problem in life is crappy employment prospects, you're doing alright on the relative scale of human deprivation. And the economy is in a horrifying state in many nations, so letting the social safety network prop you up when you're able of body and mind seems a little shady and not particularly honorable.

The other way of looking at this is that we're biologically geared to never be particularly satisfied with our lot in life, so telling people they've got it good really never makes them feel good, they're always going to be striving for that next rung on the ladder. Our personal tragedies still have weight to us no matter how bad someone else might have it by comparison, so it's a tad disingenuous to flog someone for their problems while still holding tight to our own (which we all do). And while the OP may be making a grandiose statement when he moans about slavery, the current state of minimum wage employment in the US is NOT PRETTY. I read this article a few weeks ago and it was quite the eye opener:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

...and really? I don't blame ANYONE for being depressed/angry about ending up in a situation like that. You only get one life, and you'd be amazed how quickly a situation like that can derail your health/mental well being. And once Humpty Dumpty is broken, it's not always such a simple thing to put him back together again.

So I'm not going to join the crowds calling for the OP's blood and demanding he sack up and face his godawful situation with a chipper smile. It may not be a nightmare compared to the suffering of some, but it's his nightmare, and I'm willing to bet it'd be a nightmare for quite a few people in this discussion, too. A little compassion costs nothing.