Letter: We need to help young and old find work
Tuesday 17th May 2011, 6:00AM BST.
Blog: Two stories in a recent Shropshire Star provide an ironic juxtaposition to this country’s – and Telford’s – economic situation.
On page one, a headline “Talks on job cuts at advice service” described how the work of supporting young people through the Connexions service in employment and other issues is being lined up to take a massive cut.
Young people across the town will see a reduction in youth services, in both manpower and expertise, and society as a whole will pay a heavy price in the long run.
Don’t be surprised if problems with “youth” escalate in the years to come.
On page 25, the headline “Sessions are aiming to help job hunters” described how a whole week of advice will be offered to unemployed people of all ages, under the auspices of Adult Learners Week.
A derisory and insulting offering to long-suffering people.
Don’t get me wrong. The well-meaning staff will do their best to help, but in a week?
Ongoing support, and nothing less, will be needed to combat the stress and distress of unemployment, not a week of “digital photography sessions, Zumba classes and cake decorating courses”.
Let’s support our young people, before demoralisation sets in, and then we need to think how to pay for a decent and effective youth service.
How about bankers’ unearned bonuses for starters, followed swiftly by unwarranted bonuses paid regardless of performance to a growing sector of senior executives?
Dave Askins
Lightmoor
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Plenty of low paid work for those unemployed on benefits .They do not need help just the get up and go STAMP AND ENVELOPE and apply for the jobs. Tired of the old chestnut “I am over qualified” or ” to good for that” or do you want us to take the unqualifieds jobs” unemployed is unemployed all equal and all collecting benefits time some woke up to the fact .
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My daughter,a mature single woman who is unemployed, has applied for hundreds of jobs on line and by “stamp and envelope” without success. She did seasonal work while looking for a permanent job but this year was not taken back as the “new broom” did not want any of the loyal experienced people back. It is not my daughter’s fault that she cannot get a job as she is applying for any thing and every thing, and usually not getting even an acknowledgement from the employers, never mind a job.
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Agreed. But then, why would the Chancellor (heir to a baronetcy) need to worry about trivial matters such as equality of opportunities for young people?
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I agree that young people should have work but so should older people.
The government advertise training courses but when you ask about them you are told that there is not enough money to fund them.
A ‘stamp and envelope’ is good but when no-one, in this age of technology cannot even reply to email applications, it means that they are not really interested in their ‘maybe employees’ just themselves.
I am tired of the old chestnut ‘there were too many applicants’, and ‘we couldn’t reply to them all’!
I have just done a job for 4 weeks where they wanted 35,000 people to fill the positions, there were 350,000 applicants and they replied to them all, so there is no excuse for people not letting applicants know that they have not been accepted.
I am unemployed now, nearing retirement age but I did get one of those 35,000 positions so I can’t be that bad!!! Top 10%, can’t be bad! I know you are a wind-up merchant Mr Finch but until you know the real facts,wind your neck in!
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Sorry hillary but we do have thousands of low skilled, low paid jobs part time jobs available why are they not being filled??. The Vast majority of the general public have a little sympathy for the unemployed but are not happy paying people benefits especially if it has gone on foe more than 3 months and as a tax payer I will not wind my neck in on that issue.
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Loss of Connexions service – shouldn’t schools teach kids how to write a resume before they leave?
Young people are in no worse a position than anyone else in this country so deserve no special treatment
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My money is on ‘Finchy’ has never been out in the real world looking for a job…
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