Encouraging job figures – but not for women or the over 50s

The number of people in employment, 29.24 million, and the employment rate, 70.7 per cent, in January-March, were up from October-December, by 118,000 and 0.2 points respectively. This is the third successive quarter-on-quarter increase and employment is now 416,000 higher than it was twelve months ago; this is very similar to last month’s figure:ILO unemployment in January-March stood at 2.455 million; this was down 37,000 from October–December and the unemployment rate was down 0.2 points, to 7.7 per cent. Youth unemployment was down, only by 1,000 for 16 and 17 year olds (well within the statistical margin of error), but by a more substantial 29,000 for 18–24 year olds.

Unemployment is 56,000 lower than in January–March 2010; this is not as impressive as the increase in employment and the current level is still 841,000 above the April 2008 figure – just before unemployment started rising:In the past year, decent monthly employment figures have sometimes been the result of an increase in ‘atypical’ employment – part-time and temporary jobs and self-employment. But this month the number of employees working full-time grew by 146,000 – more than the total increase in employment.

The number of self-employed people actually fell and the increase in the number of full-time workers was almost four times as great as the increase for those working part-time:

There was, however, an increase in the number of temporary workers of 48,000 and the proportion of workers who are in temporary jobs also rose – from 6.2 to 6.3 per cent. On the other hand, involuntary atypical work declined – the proportion of temporary workers who are in these jobs because they couldn’t find permanent work fell from 37.6 to 36.0 per cent and the proportion of part-time workers in the same position also fell slightly, from 15.3 to 15.2 per cent.

Another cause for concern in the past year is what’s been happening to women’s employment. In recent months, good overall results have sometimes disguised the fact that what has happened to men and women have been very different stories; in particular, women’s unemployment has risen while men’s has fallen. That is less true this month, though there are still worrying differences between what is happening to men and women.

The increase in women’s employment is very welcome, but the fall in unemployment is quite anaemic and it is still true that, despite overall declines in joblessness, women’s unemployment is 57,000 (0.3 percentage points) higher than it was a year ago.

The claimant count measure of unemployment did not move in a positive direction. For the second month running, this measure – the number claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) – rose while the ILO measure fell. This probably has a great deal to do with the increasing numbers of lone parents having to switch from Income Support to Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Lone parents whose youngest child is aged over 7 have had no benefit alternative to JSA since October last year; previously the age limit was 10. The number of lone parents on the claimant count whose youngest child is over 7 and under 10 has risen in that period from 2,570 to 39,055.

The number of women on the claimant count rose by 9,300 – three times the increase for men and the claimant count for women is at its highest level for 15 years.

The policy of progressively moving lone parents onto JSA began under the Labour government. Whatever the merits this policy may originally have had, it was designed in response to debates that were current before the global financial crisis, the rise in unemployment and the spectre of public sector job cuts.

There must be a question mark about its relevance to a situation where women’s unemployment is still high and the forthcoming cuts will hit employment opportunities for women especially hard.

There are other aspects of today’s figures that suggest we are not out of the woods yet.

While youth unemployment came down, the number of unemployed people aged over 50 to 64 rose by 14,000. This is rather worrying, as older workers have not previously been as hard hit in this recession. In previous recessions, older workers were more likely to be made redundant and then found it harder to get back into employment, it would be very worrying if that were to happen again.

Long-term unemployment continues to rise – the number of people unemployed over 12 months rose by 20,000 and the number unemployed over 24 months by 47,000.

And there are still major unemployment blackspots where there are 20 or more unemployed people chasing every job vacancy. Anjum Klair has produced a list of the ten worst in this month’s figures – more than two thousand unemployed people and just 63 job vacancies in Merthyr Tydfil!

Probably the most worrying item in today’s figures is the falling number of job vacancies: the provisional figure for January–April is just 469,000, a decline of 30,000 from the November-January figures. Although the overall picture today is quite encouraging this is a worrying marker for the future.

Most major recent reports suggest large-scale public sector job losses are in prospect:

• The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development’s Labour Market Outlook (pdf) reports that “near-term and medium-term employment prospects remain uncertain and subdued compared with pre-recession levels” and “together with the onset of public sector cutbacks, the risk of an employment slowdown appears finely balanced”.

• The Bank of England’s Agents’ summary report (pdf) describes “steady” employment growth in manufacturing and “gradual” growth in business services, but elsewhere, a great deal of uncertainty related to the prospects for household incomes and public sector cuts.

• Markit’s Report on Jobs is probably the most positive, but even they describe a “two-speed jobs market”, and are unable to say “whether the private sector can create enough jobs to offset the expected job losses in the public sector”.

Previously, I have suggested that last month’s overall good results were a blip. It’s still a finely-balanced question.

WCA is simply not fit for purpose

A major component of the ‘New Labour’ government and the current coalition government’s radical welfare reforms has been the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for disabled people. But the assessment has been made much more stringent, with people with often multiple impairments being found ‘fit to work’ through the test. This has led to much debate about the efficacy of the WCA and today the Work and Pensions Select Committee will hear evidence from Atos Origin on the very subject. Members of the Select Committee might like to take a moment and read this short article before the cross examine their witness.

From now until Spring 2014 all those who are receiving Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance and Income Support paid on the grounds of illness or disability will be assessed for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), undergoing a stringent Work Capability Assessment (WCA) carried out by the French Company Atos who are contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

First introduced in 2008, the much criticised WCA has become even more punitive since changes in the 2011 edition of the training manual for assessors. Pilots in Aberdeen and Burnley have raised more criticisms of the process adding to the raft of criticisms from the British Medical Association, GPs, Citizens Advice Bureaus (CABs), Members of Parliament and disability organisations.

Those going through the test can be put into one of three groups: ESA Support Group not required to undertake work-related activity – but will be reassessed continuously; ESA Work Related Activity Group, for those deemed fit for work with support and preparation. It will be limited to just 12 months before ESA is stopped, and also may be subject to reassessment in the 12 month period; or Fit for Work, not entitled to ESA but transferred to a lower amount on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Case studies have repeatedly shown the inhumanity of a system based on government targets and the pain and misery of the increasing stringency of these tests. One example from the 2010 Citizens Advice Bureau’s report on ESA and WCA testing procedures highlights the experiences that someone considered ‘fit for work’ through WCA might endure:

She was in a great deal of pain in her muscles and joints and had extreme fatigue. At times her balance was affected and she could not walk without someone to support her. Sometimes she lost sensation in her legs, and on her worst days she could not walk at all. Any exertion such as walking 40 or 50 metres led to days in bed. She had had a bad reaction to some of the treatment and an ECG showed her heart muscle had been damaged. Her husband had to come home from work each lunchtime to help her. Her immune system was weakened, so she had to be careful when mixing with others.

She claimed ESA but was given six points in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and found capable of work. Her doctor supported her claim and she is currently appealing, but under Incapacity Benefit she would probably have been exempt and would have avoided this process.

There are many other stories like this. There are also increasing stories of suicides committed by people left without any means of income fighting and winning appeals, only to find they are called for WCA reassessments shortly after. As part of the recognition of the increasing trend of those going through assessments to take their own lives Job Centre Plus staff have been issued with guidelines on how to deal with people who they think might be suicidal because of the WCA testing.

One estimate claims that up to 500,000 people have been wrongly denied Incapacity status. In the Guardian, Amelia Gentlemen reminds us that since its rollout people with terminal illness have been found ‘fit for work’, those with mental health issues have said the system cannot appreciate complexities of mental health, and others that the tick box system is unable to cope with any nuances of long term impairments or illness.

Citizens Advice Scotland reported that under incapacity benefits, 37 per cent were found ‘fit for work’. Under Work Capacity Assessment, the figure had soared to 66 per cent. In 2008 The DWP and Atos were severely criticised by Robert Martin, the President of the Appeals Tribunal Panel, a position now abolished:

Criticism was made of ATOS Healthcare medical practitioners who did not appear to pay sufficient attention to the appellant at the medical examination and who produced findings in medical reports based on observations that were inconsistent, or recorded in the medical report findings that were contradictory

In a later 2010 independent review of the WCA tests Professor Harrington concluded:
There is strong evidence that the system can be impersonal and mechanistic, that the process lacks transparency and that a lack of communication between the various parties involved contributes to poor decision making and a high rate of appeals.” and that “evidence has consistently and regularly highlighted problems with each stage of the WCA process, which limit both the assessment’s fairness and effectiveness.

Moreover Atos’s own staff have said the assessments are too harsh. Prospect, the trade union who represent 135 Atos doctors, has also stated that the target of seeing ten or more people a day is unrealistic and will lead to wrong assessments, especially in complex cases.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that WCA was not working, Atos were awarded a further 3 year contract by the DWP at the end of 2010, with a contract for £300 million based the perceived expertise of a software system LiMA, which comprises the central part of the WCA testing.

There has been a 56 per cent increase in ESA appeals with figures up from 25,700 in the second quarter of 2009/2010 to 52,000 in the same quarter of 2010/2011. Almost half of cases are overturned at appeal. Paul Hoggarth of Burnley Citizens Advice said that as many as 80 per cent of those supported in their claims to overturn a ‘fit for work’ decision win. Figures from the DWP show that of those declared ‘fit for work’ by the WCA system, just 13 per cent are in employment. The ‘fit for work’ myth does not convert into any form of reality.

A representative survey carried out by Ipsos MORI and reported in ‘Employment and Support Allowance: findings from a face to face Survey’ commissioned by the DWP, found that nearly a third of those going through the WCA process were described as having ‘literacy problems’. A further six per cent ‘problems speaking English’ and 11 per cent had ‘numeracy problems’. Twenty two percent were described as in one or more disadvantaged groups including those with mental health issues, ex-offenders, and those with perceived learning difficulties.

An overwhelming 69 per cent of those going through the WCA process had ‘multiple health conditions’, with 81 per cent of people receiving medical treatment for their condition and 38 per cent waiting for treatment or additional treatment in all ESA groups. These statistics do not present us with a set of fraudsters pretending to be sick or disabled, nor a set of individuals who have been languishing on incapacity benefits for years; in fact 71 per cent of applicants to ESA were new claimants making their first ever claim.

The WCA is not really about assessing fitness for work, nor supporting people into work. The ‘capability’ tests were always part of a mutual interdependence between successive Governments’ need to reduce social claims on the state and business identifying financial benefit in such a process. The misery it causes is deemed irrelevant by all parties.

The 2011 manual issued by the DWP to Atos provided new regulations including:
…infrequent loss of consciousness would not substantially impact on a person’s ability to work and therefore only those experiencing weekly or monthly episodes of loss of consciousness will be awarded scoring descriptors.

Thus if you spontaneously lose consciousness once every five weeks, you will be assessed as ‘fit for work’. This is one example of the non reality of new WCA ‘fit for work’ standards. It undermines the logic, and the economic and social realities of any reasonable employment criteria. The WCA is presented under the guise of state and market efficiency. It serves neither criterion.

Getting 'on yer bike' is easier than getting a travel pass

On Wednesday the Government will publish the latest round of unemployment statistics and the safe bet is they will be depressing. Typically, members of the front bench will point to numerous initiatives that are now running, or shortly due to start. They will also talk about how private enterprise will shortly take up significant numbers as business grows.

Opposition benches will accuse the government of failing to tackle the rising numbers signing on. Neither will take a hard look at why the unemployed are increasingly refusing to look for work. In a report in “New Statesman”, Alice Miles correctly asserted that one of the driving factors is because the cost of transport to interviews is often prohibitive.

Jobcentre Plus has established a system to help claimants claim expenses when these things happen. Unfortunately it is bureaucratic frequently acts as a disincentive to search for work.

First the client has to go to the jobcentre to fill in a form and have an interview with an adviser, who will decide whether to fund the trip. This adviser will also check afterwards to see if the client turned up. Conservative estimates are that this bureaucracy costs approximately £50 - £75 every time a claimant needs travel money.

The problem is even more complex as we live in an information age where employers often arrange same/ next day interviews. Many claimants do not get as far as the paperwork because the jobcentre cannot see them until the following day, so they often can’t get their costs paid on time.

A while ago, American research found that inadequate transport was often one of the key determining factors that prevented claimants from looking for work. Car ownership is often too probative for most claimants, so many need to rely on public transport – but in many areas public transport routes do not exist, or are too expensive and this can frequently block opportunities for the unemployed to return to work.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that travel costs can often be 10 to 20 per cent higher for those living in rural areas. With significant cuts now being implemented across most councils this will result in reductions to the transport subsidy, leaving many people isolated.

The government needs to consider how they intend to get people back to work if claimants can’t get to work. No doubt the government is hopeful Work Programme will make this easier as more clients are slowly fed directly through to providers, who, in turn, will take responsibility for funding travel costs.

Unfortunately this presupposes all claimants will be transferred to an independent provider. It also assumes these providers are capable of responding immediately and appropriately to the needs of the client – something that has historically been found to be seriously wanting.

No, the solution will need to be far simpler and believe it or not, it’s not rocket science. The client rings up during office hours and jobcentres guarantee a same day service to ensure clients have funds to get to interviews. If the caller rings between 5pm and 6pm s/he can speak to a JSA adviser, who can liaise with local transport services to ensure they are able to pick up a travel warrant from the local railway station. Seamless delivery at its finest.

Unfortunately, I have reached the stage in life where I have become something of a grumpy old man. As a result I am confident that instead of looking at how DWP could iron out the wrinkles in my approach they would prefer to trash it and assume it is inoperable.

So if you are unemployed and have an interview away from home, don’t expect the jobcentre will jump for joy and respond immediately to your requests. They are more likely to suck their teeth and say “Oooh, we don’t get a lot of call for travel warrants around here!”

Your patience will be tested, your nerves frazzled and your blood pressure sent through the roof, but in some cases you will get help ……….. if you really, really, really ask nicely!