Abstract:This article explores the impact of a more individualised public employment service on vulnerable people. It analyses a system Jobcentre Plus implemented in 2008, Accessing Jobcentre Plus Customer Services (AJCS), to improve customer services by minimising 'footfall' in local offices, encouraging the use of self-service facilities and targeting service delivery to the requirements of customers. The article shows that certain vulnerable groups, notably people with disabilities, are not necessarily well served b… Show more
“…They're not there to do that anymore. (WSU‐BR‐AS‐011)Staff cuts and a strategy of minimising “footfall” have been translated into a chronic lack of time for supportive contact (Stafford, Roberts, & Duffy, ). The growing reliance on digital technologies has reinforced the alienation and isolation of many claimants, who reported They do not really want you there.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Jobcentre Plus reinforced a move away from training and public employment programmes towards low-cost measures for immediate job entry (Fletcher, 2000). Staff cuts and a strategy of minimising "footfall" have been translated into a chronic lack of time for supportive contact (Stafford, Roberts, & Duffy, 2012). The growing reliance on digital technologies has reinforced the alienation and isolation of many claimants, who reported Jobcentre visits were experienced by most of our interviewees as "social suffering" (Bourdieu, 1999) and "ritualised humiliation" (Charlesworth, 2000, p. 81), where the "symbolic politics of myth and ceremony" (Handler, 2003, p. 235) were enacted punitively.…”
A defining feature of U.K. welfare reform since 2010 has been the concerted move towards greater compulsion and sanctioning, which has been interpreted by some social policy scholars as punitive and cruel. In this article, we borrow concepts from criminology and sociology to develop new interpretations of welfare conditionality. Based on data from a major Economic and Social Research Council‐funded qualitative longitudinal study (2014–2019), we document the suffering that unemployed claimants experienced because of harsh conditionality. We find that punitive welfare conditionality often caused symbolic and material suffering and sometimes had life‐threatening effects. We argue that a wide range of suffering induced by welfare conditionality can be understood as ‘social abuse’, including the demoralisation of the futile job‐search treadwheel and the self‐administered surveillance of the Universal Jobmatch panopticon. We identify a range of active claimant responses to state perpetrated harm, including acquiescence, adaptation, resistance, and disengagement. We conclude that punitive post‐2010 unemployment correction can be seen as a reinvention of failed historic forms of punishment for offenders.
“…They're not there to do that anymore. (WSU‐BR‐AS‐011)Staff cuts and a strategy of minimising “footfall” have been translated into a chronic lack of time for supportive contact (Stafford, Roberts, & Duffy, ). The growing reliance on digital technologies has reinforced the alienation and isolation of many claimants, who reported They do not really want you there.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Jobcentre Plus reinforced a move away from training and public employment programmes towards low-cost measures for immediate job entry (Fletcher, 2000). Staff cuts and a strategy of minimising "footfall" have been translated into a chronic lack of time for supportive contact (Stafford, Roberts, & Duffy, 2012). The growing reliance on digital technologies has reinforced the alienation and isolation of many claimants, who reported Jobcentre visits were experienced by most of our interviewees as "social suffering" (Bourdieu, 1999) and "ritualised humiliation" (Charlesworth, 2000, p. 81), where the "symbolic politics of myth and ceremony" (Handler, 2003, p. 235) were enacted punitively.…”
A defining feature of U.K. welfare reform since 2010 has been the concerted move towards greater compulsion and sanctioning, which has been interpreted by some social policy scholars as punitive and cruel. In this article, we borrow concepts from criminology and sociology to develop new interpretations of welfare conditionality. Based on data from a major Economic and Social Research Council‐funded qualitative longitudinal study (2014–2019), we document the suffering that unemployed claimants experienced because of harsh conditionality. We find that punitive welfare conditionality often caused symbolic and material suffering and sometimes had life‐threatening effects. We argue that a wide range of suffering induced by welfare conditionality can be understood as ‘social abuse’, including the demoralisation of the futile job‐search treadwheel and the self‐administered surveillance of the Universal Jobmatch panopticon. We identify a range of active claimant responses to state perpetrated harm, including acquiescence, adaptation, resistance, and disengagement. We conclude that punitive post‐2010 unemployment correction can be seen as a reinvention of failed historic forms of punishment for offenders.
“…The state of twenty-first century employment services falls far short of the impression of personalised customer service (implying widely available, generous and flexible user-led support) that is advertised in welfare reform rhetoric. At a time when economic conditions have increased demand for employment advice and support, Jobcentre Plus services have been deliberately reformed to minimise face-to-face contact by reducing ‘footfall’ in offices and ‘redirecting customers to self-help channels’, meaning that ‘staff prioritise processing people through the system and this is at the cost of offering jobsearch-related support’ (Stafford et al ., 2012: 502). This means that by the time most long-term unemployed people reach the Work Programme, they are likely to have experienced very little advice or assistance in finding a job.…”
Section: The Value Of ‘Activation Workers’ Perceptions’mentioning
“…Employment support agencies represent (Stafford et al , 2012) and ‘reverse market’ disabled people to employers (Lewis and Priday, 2008). By comparing employers who have hired disabled people (hirers) with employers who have never hired disabled people (non-hirers), we might identify positive aspects of employers that an agency could use to change the behaviour of employers that do not hire disabled people.…”
Employer reluctance to hire disabled people narrows the economic and vocational opportunities of disabled people. This study investigates employer hiring decisions to identify which mainstream employers are most likely to hire disabled people. The study reports findings from interviews with eighty-seven employers in urban and regional South Australia. Analysis reveals differences across groups of employers based on their previous hiring behaviour. Communication from employment support agencies should specifically address concerns of non-hirers and light hirers. Long-term financial concerns present strong but surmountable barriers to light hirers employing disabled people. Policy mitigating long-term employer concerns could attract employers to hire disabled people for the first time (non-hirers) or return to hiring (light hirers) disabled people. Negative employers (antagonists) and employers already sustaining ongoing workplace relationships with disabled people (loyals) have insurmountable reasons to not hire any (or more) disabled people and should not be targeted.
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