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Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

Thursday, 3rd January 2008

The FT reports today that:

Up-to-date figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that last May 504,000 people below the age of 35 were claiming incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance compared with 443,000 claiming jobseeker’s allowance.

Run that by me again?

The figure, which includes more than 300,000 young people claiming for “mental and behavioural disorders”, shows continuing high levels of worklessness among the young, in spite of 10 years of steady economic growth and a concerted attempt to move people off welfare and into work....Sue Christoforou, of mental health charity Mind, said: “Society is much faster paced, the workplace is more competitive, and there are more short-term contracts.”

There is, I believe, a technical phrase for this. It begins with a b, ends with an s and has ollock in between.

I accept that there will indeed be some under-35-year-olds who are so mentally incapacitated that they cannot work. But 300,000? Because of short-term contracts? Such is the benefits system today, that such patent nonsense is simply accepted as a given.

As for there being over half a million people under 35 are unable to work: surely the correct word is not 'unable' but 'unwilling' - and then indulged by the state.

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Jennie

January 3rd, 2008 10:06pm

Suppose that many of these would like to return to work. How appealing will they be to employers? Who will a typical employer prefer to take on? Someone who has been out of work and claiming some kind of sickness or disablement benefit for years? Or an eastern-european immigrant with a good work record back home?

Barry Day

January 4th, 2008 6:39pm

Hi Stephen, any facts/figures for your argument? Thanks in advance.

paul

January 5th, 2008 3:58am

Barry, Any figures to suggest the 300,000 is fair figure so compared with comparable numbers in, say, the US, Japan and Germany.

Jennie

January 5th, 2008 11:48am

The government would prefer to have those candidates who are'undesirable' to employers on sickness and disability benefits rather than on Jobseeker's Allowance. It doesn't take a genius to work out why.