New incentives needed to stop revolving door of employment
Giving welfare to work providers greater financial incentives staggered over longer periods would finally put an end to ‘revolving door’ employment, a think tank has claimed.
The Social Market Foundation (SMF) wants to see employment services handed over to a broader range of private, voluntary and public sector organisations – backed by more effective incentives.
It believes the current system is failing, highlighted by the high proportion of people who secure work only to find themselves back claiming benefits within months. Official figures show some 40% of jobseeker’s allowance claimants who find jobs return to JSA within six months.
The flexible new deal, a key part of the government’s drive to tackle unemployment, sets providers a target of ensuring people stay in work for six months. SMF wants to see that extended to 53 weeks across all employment services and for payments to reflect the ‘varying difficulties of achieving sustained employment for different jobseekers’ to avoid a situation where providers cherry-pick the ‘easiest’ candidates.
‘The answer is to develop a welfare-to-work system that places employment sustainability at its centre, instead of focusing on achieving job starts,’ said the report. ‘What is needed is an employment service that is built around an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the UK labour market, and is sufficiently flexible and well-resourced to tailor the help it offers to individuals with unique sets of circumstances.
'Employment services must be able to help people to navigate the turbulence of the labour market by assisting them to link up spells of temporary work and then move into more stable employment.’
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