Rising toll of the jobless

Many Shropshire workers are hoping for a happier new year, after finding themselves out of work in the run-up to Christmas, writes Ben Bentley.

But when you're pushing 60 years old and the nation is in recession, is there anything out there for you?

All his working life, 56-year-old Terence Cotterill has been a grafter, laying floors for the last 40 years.

Today, standing outside the Job Centre in Telford town centre, he is among Britain's rising toll of jobless, having been laid off two months ago.

"This is the first time I've been out of work in my life and it's terrible," says Terence, his job seekers book in hand, having just signed on and scoured the vacancies at the Job Centre to no avail.

"I feel you get treated like rubbish - all they want to do is get you back into work but if there are no jobs out there. . . I cannot do anything else.

"I've got a family and I'm nearly 60 and employers don't want to know."

Ah, that age old age question: despite legislation introduced to eliminate discrimination on the basis of age, it appears there are employers out there craftily working around it. They have, after all at the moment, got the pick of whoever they like - there's plenty of other grafters out there desperate for work.

Terence describes how a friend of a similar age is in the same boat. It seems everyone knows someone who is recently out of a job.

Everyday there are new reports of more job cuts and companies going to the wall. Among the latest are high street stalwarts Woolworths and MFI , who have both gone belly up.

"I didn't realise how bad it was," says Terence. "I went into the barbers and it was empty. The barber said it was normally busy on a Friday morning but he'd got nobody in and he'd got two barbers there he was paying them to do nothing.

"It's the knock-on effect of it - shop workers, painters, plumbers - it's affecting a lot of areas, even schools."

Terence describes how he recently had to find £30 to pay in one week to pay for school trips and tickets for a school play, and says people can no longer afford to cough up.

According to government figures, the number of people unemployed is 1.82 million - the highest it's been in more than 10 years. Last month saw one of the sharpest rises in Shropshire dole queues for some time.

If things carry on the way they are - and unemployment is predicted to hit three million by 2010 - many more of us are likely to end up where Terence has ended up: at the Job Centre.

This Christmas has been a tough one, not just for people like Terence but for everyone who's not got a job. And even for many who have.

But he says you just have to cut your cloth to suit your circumstances. Life goes on.

You see, Terence is nothing if not an optimist, saying: "Where there's a will there's a way. I feel it will pick up again, I'm not a negative person."

And he says that people should not be frightened or humiliated by the prospect of a trip to the Job Centre. After the initial shock of finding himself out of work for the first time in his working life, Terence has a more measured perspective of the circumstances he has found himself in through no fault of his own.

He's even upbeat about going to the Job Centre.

"The people at the Job Centre are helpful - they do try and do things for you," he continues.

"But I remember the first week I signed on and I lost my rag, because I could not accept it, it was a new thing as it will be to a lot of people.

"If you are a grafter and you have never been here before you think 'Why am I being treated like this?'

"It was a big shock, it was the first time I'd been there in 40 years."

So for anyone finding themselves in the similar position of being unemployed at the start of the new year, take heart from the upside to Terence's story. He says it's doing him some good, that in an odd way he's a lot more relaxed about his future and doesn't worry so much.

He's looking for work in his trade of floor laying, but is now considering other options. He fancies himself as a driver and has been looking at vacancies across other fields.

Indeed, a chatty chap with a bright outlook and keen to offer other people a word of advice when it comes to searching for a job, Terence could do worse than taking a post here at the Job Centre.

Because one irony of a rising number of British workers on the dole is that Job Centres are now so busy they are recruiting 6,000 new staff - one of the only operations nationally taking people on.

Terence has already heard this news. He gets on with people and reckons it could be an opportunity. His eagerness to return to work is reminiscent, but by no means threatening, of perhaps the most famous unemployed character ever to have appeared on television.

Anyone remember Boys From the Blackstuff's Yosser Hughes and his catchphrase "Gizza job?"

Says Terence: "I said to one of the staff, 'I could do your job' and the lady said it's going to be one of the sought-after jobs because they are the ones who are helping other people get back into work.

"I would give it a go."