Unemployment

If I were to say I could reduce unemployment to zero what would you think? It's a goal that is very simple to achieve. Currently there are more people out of work than there are recorded as "officially unemployed." This is obviously because we are only concerned with how many people are not working and are claiming benefits.

The problem is that there are many people who are happy to live on benefits and don't want to work, and we are letting them! When I was younger my own brother, who had 2 children and had been unemployed for about 10 years, said to me "Why should I go to work? If I got a job I would have to work 40 hours per week and end up with the same amount of money, or maybe less." As a teenager I couldn't fault his argument, hearing arguments like this at a young age can easily convince young people that getting money for nothing is a great way to live, possibly more so in areas of high unemployment or where people experience 2nd or 3rd generation unemployment.

So, what is unemployment? Unemployment simply speaking is not having a job and getting paid anyway. I work hard for my money, I pay tax, and I have little cash left each month to go out and enjoy myself. I don't get to go on holiday every year, or buy lots of things I like, so why is it that considering my circumstances I am paying part of my wages in order to support the guy down the road who is too idle to work for his living? Why does this guy get to spend every day exactly how he pleases whilst I work hard? It's just not right.

When I hand over money I want something for it. If my money is being handed over to the unemployed guy down the road then I want something for it! What I would like is:

Why should we give money to an idle work force? If these people are unemployed and not sick then they are capable of work. If they are unable to find a commercial job then give them a "community job." Community jobs would require people without commercial jobs to perform community tasks such as the ones outlined previously. Why pay more council tax to improve our neighbourhood when we are already paying people who could be improving it for us?

Here are a couple of photos from my local park. I am paying people to sit at home and do nothing when my local park looks like this?

Junk in stream Burned out car

I believe a person with a community job should entitled certain benefits (reduced council tax, free education, a living allowance, council housing, etc) and in exchange they would have to work either 2 or 3 days per week. I propose they do not work a 5 day week so that anyone who wishes to move into commercial employment may spend the other days attending free education in order to qualify for jobs within the commercial sector. Anybody who doesn't want to spend their spare time qualifying for a job can spend their spare time however they wish. I would not want to require them to work additional days because this would result in people attending education they have no interest in just to avoid work, that would put additional strain on the education sector and inevitably cause disruption for those who do wish to learn new skills.

Just like an commercial job a community employee may lose their job if they do not put an acceptible amount of effort into it. To deter people from deliberately losing their community job I believe that once a person has been fired from three community jobs within a calendar year they should not qualify for another position for a month, resulting in a loss of their benefits. If they do not wish to contribute to society then they should not benefit from society (with the exception of emergency health care.)