Report slams “unsustainable jobs”

While the government’s emphasis on getting people into work “has been instrumental in helping people move into employment from unemployment”, many of the jobs people move into are not leading to sustainable employment, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

A new NAO report, Sustainable employment: supporting people to stay in work and advance, found that of the 2.4 million new Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA) claims each year, around two-thirds are repeat claims. And around 40% of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants who move into work will make another claim for the allowance within six months.

And while the research finds that overall, employment programmes like the New Deal are positive, rates of return to benefit “suggest that for some people, help in finding work is only part of the solution”.

The research says that this pattern of returns to benefit is not new, and the proportion represented by JA claimants who find work only to make a subsequent benefit claim within six months has been constant for many years.

The report’s findings also indicate that improving job retention is key to the the government achieving its 2010 target of halving child poverty.