Wednesday 27 April 2011

"Are there any vacancies here at the moment?"

****

My wife and I were in Burtons yesterday looking (unsuccessfully) for a t-shirt. While we were perusing the clothes on offer a young woman walked into the shop and approached the floorwalker:

"Are there any vacancies here at the moment?"

The woman was looking for a job*. Now there weren't any on offer at Burton but I was cheered that this young woman saw that the way to get a job was to go out to the places that employ people and ask them whether they had need of her services.

I hope this particular young woman is successful - she shows the initiative that employers like, she was prepared to invest some shoe leather and make the effort. She probably recognises that we have no 'right' to a job - it is work done in exchange for payment received - and that jobs are pretty scarce now. And that plenty never get near to the Job Centre.

*Update - came across this while reading the Policy Exchange report on 'Fairness' (pdf):

At present, Jobseekers Allowance claimants are required to search for work but there is no fixed amount of time they are mandated to spend doing this. In fact, a recent survey conducted by two Princeton economists for the Institute for the Study of Labor, found that jobseekers in the UK spend an average of eight minutes per day looking for jobs.
....

No comments: