Fifth Review

I had my fifth review the week coming up to Christmas.

After I had signed my name in the tower of misery sign in book I made my way to my job advisers desk. She checked my C.V. on the C.V. builder to make sure I had updated it. She asked me if there were any jobs during my job searching that I had found interesting, I was very tempted to tell her about how there was a job advertised for a job adviser in the Letterkenny People1st building, which I will write about next month. In the end I told her there wasn't any jobs advertised that suited me which was true. All there seemed to be were manager type jobs, or nursing and the like.

She told me how in the job where she had sent my C.V. that they might be looking for workers but it would be after Christmas and that she would contact them again to see if there were any further updates on the job front.

She asked again about the other type of job that I was interested in and I told her that I didn't think I would get work in that area and that I should just look for a normal job. She was very helpful in trying to get me work experience in what I wanted to work at and said that she would contact them again after the New Year to see if she could get me work experience in that area and also the other job I was interested in doing that she had sent my C.V. to and would contact them also again in the New Year.

I got another appointment for the New Year and we wished each other a Happy Christmas and New Year and I make my way out of the tower of misery glad that I wouldn't have to set foot in it again for over two weeks. 

Man On Jobpath Got His Dole Cut Two Weeks Before Christmas

I was speaking to a man who is also on Jobpath and he was telling me about another man he knows who got his dole cut. I will tell you what he told me.

An unemployed man on Jobpath in Letterkenny said he wanted a painting job as he is a painter by trade. His job adviser in People1st rang him up one day and told him there was a painting job in Omagh Northern Ireland and could she send in his C.V. He said yes as he thought he wasn't going to get the job so what was the harm in sending in his C.V. A day of two later she rang him back up and told him that he had got the job, he asked her how could he have gotten the job when he never even had an interview and that it would not pay him to go to Omagh everyday from Letterkenny, that he was not refusing a job but that he wanted one within 10 miles of Letterkeny. His job adviser never said anything to him and when he went to get his dole at the Post Office the following week he found that his dole was cut. He never so much as got a letter to say his dole was being cut, the first he knew about it was when he went to collect his dole at the Post Office. This was two weeks before Christmas and a man that has a wife and children.

When he went to the Social Welfare Office they told him his money was cut as he refused to take a job that his job adviser on Jobpath had got him. The person in the Social Welfare Office told him he would have to appeal the decision and to give his version of events. The person also asked him if he had got his Christmas bonus and he told her he had got it the week before and the person in the Social Welfare Office told him "That will keep you going until you appeal this outcome" it would be funny if it wasn't true. I think someone should make an Irish version of the British film I, Daniel Blake
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/

Letterkenny to Omagh is a over an hours drive, an unemployed person would need to be getting about €600 a week the same as a job adviser gets after tax for the job to pay and be better off. A job at the minimum wage traveling that sort of distance every day would not take an unemployed person above the poverty line, not to mention paying taxes in Northern Ireland which is the UK and with the Brexit coming up there could be job losses in Northern Ireland. To work in Northern Ireland you also need to have a National Insurance (NI) number to work.

Also if you live in the Republic and work in Northern Ireland and you loss your job there are special rules for frontier/cross border workers with regards to claiming Jobseeker Benefits.  http://borderpeople.info/a-z/jobseeker-benefits.html

When the man was finished in the Social Welfare Office filling in the form giving his version of events, he then went to the local Community Social Welfare Officer that week to see if he could get money so that he could feed his family a week before Christmas.

All this was done so that the job adviser at People1st working on behalf of Seetec can meet targets which they have to meet or else they don't get their bonus so forced the man into a job that was over an hours drive and expected him to drive there and back every day. When he refused the job on the grounds that it would not pay for him to travel there and back everyday, she reported him to Social Welfare who then cut his dole two weeks before Christmas. As I said before to be a job adviser you to have a lack of empathy and a black soul with a narcissistic personality and by doing the above only further proves that statement. How these people can sleep at night is a mystery.

http://www.peoplebeforeprofit.ie/2016/05/fit-for-work-targets-sick-and-disabled/

It looks like Seetec are doing the same here in Ireland as they already do in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/05/work-programme-adviser-box-ticking-sanctioning-sick-people and that is cut jobseekers money for jobs that are either too far way to travel to or jobs the jobseeker knows they would not be suitable for but their job adviser thinks they are suitable for as they have targets that have to be met and any job will do the jobseeker which defeats the whole propose of trying to get a long time jobseeker into a suitable job and making sure its suitable and is something the jobseeker wants to do so that they stay in that job as other wise its just a waste of time and the jobseeker will end up unemployed again which is what mostly happens in the UK, that is if they can even get them a job. UK back to work programmes had found jobs for only about one in nine (11 per cent) claimants of the out-of-work disability benefit, employment and support allowance (ESA), compared to its original “expectation” of 22 per cent

http://www.disabledgo.com/blog/2014/11/work-programme-failure-to-help-disabled-people-is-a-scandal/

Any unemployed person that is on Jobpath has more experience then all of these job advisers and managers at being unemployed  How many job advisers and managers that work for Seetec/Turas Nua/People1st have been unemployed?

So a job adviser gets a unemployed person a job without getting an interview for said job.

The unemployed person isn't told the hours, pay, or how many days they would have to work yet are expected to take the job and if not they get their dole cut. Its just like Velma* said at "Gateway" if we get you a job and you don't take it then..."

The employer doesn't interview the jobseeker so how do they know the person is suitable for the job, its OK for the job adviser to say they are suitable as they are nothing more than a sales person and most don't care if the jobseeker is suitable for the job or not they just care about meeting their targets.

Any employer who takes on a jobseeker without even interviewing them is in my opinion an employer who does not care about their employees and will employ anyone and everyone regardless if they are suitable for the job or not.

I know some job advisers are telling employers about Jobplus which is where the employer gets €10,000 euro from the Irish Government for taking on a long term unemployed person and €7,500 if the person has been unemployed for more than 12 but less than 24 months not to mention the job adviser getting their bonus.

The Department of Social Protection pays the incentive to the employer monthly in arrears over a 2-year period. It provides 2 levels of regular cash payments:

A payment of €7,500 for each person recruited who has been unemployed for more than 12 but less than 24 months.

A payment of €10,000 for each person recruited who has been unemployed for more than 24 months or more.

See link for JobsPlus below

 http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemployment_and_redundancy/employment_support_schemes/jobsplus.html

The only thing that matters is that targets have to be met and unemployment figures have to be massaged by putting unemployed people on Jobpath.

Not their real names*

Fourth Review

Once I had signed in I waited a minute or two then I was greeted by my job adviser and we walked to her desk. I sat down and she then asked for my login number and date of birth and then logged into my profile on her computer.

She then checked to make sure I had updated my C.V. on the C.V. builder. She told me to amend my C.V. for the type of work I'm interested in doing and do have a normal C.V. for sending to jobs so in effect I would have two C.V.s. One for the type of work I'm interested in and the other for everyday type of jobs.

I was asked what else I wanted to work at, I told her and said she would see if she could get me a job at the other thing I was interested in. Told to keep up my job searching and got another appointment for three weeks time and then it was time to go.

Third Review

I walked up the flights of stairs to the top of the tower of misery for my third review. After signing into the tower of misery sign in book I took a seat and waited for my job adviser. After a few minutes of waiting she greeted me with a hello and a smile and we walked to her desk. Once there she looked up my profile on her computer to check how I was getting on.

She told me it was my quarter review and that I would need to take the online skills assessment survey again. As I have mentioned before this it is a Likery scale which is a psychometric scale that is a psychological measurement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale

This involves multiple choice questions and you tick one of the boxes that say, strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree before moving onto the next question, there are five questions per page and after you answered the questions on the page you were on you click save before then clicking next and moving onto the next set of questions. The survey is only about 5 minutes long and there is about 20 questions.

After I had finished she had a look on her computer to compare the survey I had done the first day I started Jobpath to see if there was any difference, there was seeing as I clicked strongly disagree on only one question and clicked agree on all the rest. As I said before the survey is nothing more than a tick boxing exercise.

She then typed up my review and then digitally signed her initials on my review on her computer and I had to do the same by moving the computer mouse and signing my initials on screen after which she then printed out my review and handed me a copy to take with me.

She told me to I had to update my C.V. in the Seetec C.V. builder for the next time. I then got the time and date for my next review and we said our goodbyes until the next review.

Wanted: Job advisers, manager or sales experince an advantage, apply within.

If there is one thing I have noticed since I started Jobpath is how target driven Jobpath is.

Most of the job advisers, actually about 99% of them, have had jobs as managers or sales experience in their previous jobs and most have had both a manager type role and worked in sales, so I ask the question what would they know about being unemployed or the needs of unemployed people? All the unemployed people are to these job advisers are just another number and potential sales target.

Have any of these job advisers any experience at being unemployed? If not then that makes their "clients" as they call them, more experienced at their job than they are. Of course the job advisers would disagree with this statement as they are after all sales people that think they can and will meet these so called targets.

They are deluding themselves if they think they can make that a reality. Panic, fear, anxiety, dread, trepidation, distress, despair, breaking out in a cold sweat are all words and feelings a job adviser feels when one of their "clients" fails to gain employment. The only advice as an unemployed person I can give the job advisers is get used to these feelings.

The one thing all these job advisers fail to recognize is that its the unemployed people that is keeping them in jobs. If there were no unemployed people these job advisers would not have a job working for a private company that is government funded and contracted to exploit unemployed people. Most of the job advisers working for Jobpath/Seetec/People1st have no empathy what so ever and I wouldn't be surprised if they had black souls to match their lack of empathy.

The unspoken needs of many outweigh the needs of the few. The many being the unemployed and the few being Jobpath.

Second Review

I had my second review. It was more or less the same as the first review. My job adviser asked how my job searching was going and did I look into getting work experience in the type of work I wanted to do. I told my job adviser I had asked for work experience in the business establishment that specializes in the type of work that I am interested in doing and they said to me they are not taking on anyone for work experience at the minute but they would keep me in mind and I also told my job adviser the name of the person I spoke to if she wanted to check. She updated what I had told her into her computer. She then looked up on her computer the type of work I was looking for and sent a few links to my email address to check out.

She asked me if there was anything else I wanted to work at as what I wanted to work at it was not going to be easy to get a job in that type of work and I had to be realistic about looking for other types of jobs. She told me "Your on the programme now 8 weeks"  Its actually 7 weeks I'm on it, and that my next review will be my quarter. She told me to keep up my job searching and made another appointment for my next review and to check out the links she sent to my email address. We said our good byes and I made my way out of the tower of misery and back out into the lovely fresh cool air and enjoyed my freedom once more until the following week when it would be time for job searching once again.

One thing I have noticed so far while on Jobpath is that it seems to be mostly older people on Jobpath. People in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, there are more people in their 50's than any other age group on Jobpath in Letterkenny. I have seen one man who didn't look too far off the age of 60, can I ask who is going to give him a job at his age? You can be put on Jobpath up to age 61.

Yet this is what Jobpath are targeting, people who are basically unemployable, but so long as it makes the live register figures lower that is all that matters. Another thing I have noticed is that there are no Travellers on Jobpath, not one have I yet to see on it but for some strange reason they seem to be exempt from being put on Jobpath.

The unemployment figures will just keep on dropping the more people they put on Jobpath and half of Letterkenny's unemployed people who are on jobseekers benefit or jobseekers allowance are already on Jobpath and anyone who is not its just a matter of time before they are put on it, except of course if your Traveller in which case they won't bother about you!