The Government has been coy about its new plan to force people into work, however unsuitable, suggest Tom Boland and Ray Griffin in an article published by the Irish Examiner on Monday, 1 February 2016.
Opinion: ‘Pathways’ employment initiative will railroad unemployed into precarious work
Election promises are trumpeted loudly to gain votes. Yet the Government’s ‘Pathways to Work, 2016-2020’ was published last month without fanfare, and nobody complained of auction politics.
Under the 2010 bailout, Ireland was obliged to enforce ‘active labour market policies’, which exist across Europe, but which were ignored during the Celtic Tiger. These policies mark a radical shift in welfare, from merely giving out financial entitlements to ‘supporting the unemployed in securing work’.
These ‘activation’ policies combine both supports and conditionality. Supports include providing training, work experience, education, and guidance for the unemployed and rewarding employers who take people off the live register.
Conditionality means increased surveillance and monitoring of job-seeking, pressure to attend meetings and to follow the advice of case workers, and obligatory participation in internships and acceptance of any job offers. These are backed by the threat of sanctions — the reduction of benefits by a quarter or the suspension of payments. Activation policy varies; Denmark spends most on supports, whereas the UK has harsher conditionality. Ireland is somewhere between the two.
Economically, supports lead to better-quality jobs, but increased conditionality fuels precarious work, as jobseekers have to accept any offer that comes their way, including internships. Furthermore, these policies have a human cost; increased conditionality pressurises the unemployed, causing stress and mental health problems. Threatening the majority with sanctions to weed out a minority of alleged scroungers is indefensible.
The ESRI has proved, statistically, that most people are financially better off in work, and those who would only be slightly better off prefer work to welfare.
‘Pathways 2016-2020’ claims that it increases employment, even though there is no proof of causality, only coincidence of activation policy and economic recovery. The issue of job quality is scarcely addressed, nor is the muddying of the figures by the thousands with the ‘quasi-work’ of courses and internships. Yet even this glowing self-analysis admits that youth unemployment and long-term unemployment are still stubbornly high.
Having concluded that ‘Pathways to Work’ is the right remedy, the document envisages expanding and intensifying the policy. Intensification means more frequent meetings between case officers and jobseekers; if the jobseekers do not comply with the office’s instructions, they can be sanctioned. Despite decreases in the live register, the numbers sanctioned have steadily increased to 500 per month.
The report presumes that employment will continue to grow steadily — ignoring external factors — and recommends extending ‘Pathways’ to more people, to increase the supply of labour in coming years. Textbook economics suggests that increasing the supply of anything keeps the price low, so there will be no upward pressure on wages.
This extension of ‘Pathways’ is already underway. Last summer, lone parents’ allowance was replaced by the jobseeker transition (JST) activation model for lone parents who have children aged between 7 and 13, and those with children aged over 13 must apply for ordinary jobseekers’ allowance. This extends the monitoring and pressuring of more and more people and the threat of sanctions to them.
Under the new five-year plan, this JST model will be applied to:
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Part-time workers;
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People who are unemployed, but not in receipt of a welfare payment;
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People with a disability;
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Homemakers;
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Students.
Aside from children and pensioners, there is no group here not targeted by the new policy. In the UK, people with disabilities have been targeted by Conservative-led governments, with a ‘fitness to work’ test that reassesses whether individuals can seek work, whatever their medical condition. The test has been blamed for the deaths of thousands since 2011, and the UN are currently investigating human rights abuses under this policy.
Work in the home or community is clearly undervalued. Participation in the market is everything — even a ‘cure-all’ for poverty, according to the policy, though some work might be below a living wage, and precarious work means perpetually moving from welfare to poor-quality work and back again, with deleterious consequences for health and well-being.
Clearly, the main aim is not just to reduce State spending on welfare entitlements, but also to provide a steady stream of cheap labour to any employer. “Throughout Europe, it is now recognised that effective public employment services need to be employer- centric.” says ‘Pathways’.
There is no such consensus; really, this political statement reflects the outlook of its authors. This rather quiet election promise is directed at employers.
Governments should ensure a level playing field, rather than favouring employers. What sort of jobs employers create, whether they give people long-term stability, support local communities, deliver tax revenues, or are environmentally friendly are all public issues.
Ultimately, all the citizens of the State, not just employers, will reap the consequences of this short-sighted plan. Luckily, we now have the opportunity to examine and vote upon this very quiet election promise, and ask for political alternatives.
Tom Boland and Ray Griffin are lecturers in the School of Humanities and the School of Business at SETU respectively and are authors of The Sociology of Unemployment.