I read with interest the report today which claimed that fewer jobseeker claimants equates to more people in work. Sadly this does not necessarily present an accurate picture of what is taking place in our region. What is actually taking place is people being sanctioned and not receiving benefits at all, thus removing them from the unemployment statistics. I recently spoke to two people in a very small geographical area to whom this had happened. The BBC has reported that in 2014 there have been 15,955 sanctions for ESA claimants, compared with 3,574 in the same period last year. There were an estimated 1,104,000 JSA and ESA sanctions in the year to 31 March 2014, which is double that of the previous government, in all cases claimants’ payments will have been stopped for at least 4 weeks. These are the highest figures for any 12-month period since JSA was introduced in 1996. The annual number of sanctions has almost doubled under the Coalition. So, sadly, its not necessarily true that there are lots more people in work and those who are in work arent feeling any benefit as pay is still not keeping pace with inflation.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 19:22:01 +0000
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