New unemployment rules.

[woolybanana]

These came into force today and concern new unemployed as well as some others.

Basically, in the past workers could qualify if they had worked for 4 months in the last 48 but now it has to be 6 months in the last 24.

In addition, though I haven't fully understood it, the conditions for those who voluntarily resign from a job have been considerably tightened.

Plus the indemnity for those who were earning over €4000 per month has been cut and will steadily reduce.

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth but maybe it will force people back into work, maybe in those areas where there are worker shortages.

[NormanH]

1)A major problem is the mismatch of the skills needed by employers and those that  unemployed people have to offer, especially at the relatively unskilled end of the market.

2)The system, like housing benefit, has always been there for the advantage of the owners: housing benefit goes into the pocket of the landlord, and the system which permitted seasonal workers to get unemployment benefit after 4 months was to the advantage of the employers who can pay only a few months salary  and then expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for their workers when the season is finished...

I don't see the unemployed as the villains here.

[woolybanana]

Nor do I really, Norman

[nomoss]

[quote user="NormanH"]

1)A major problem is the mismatch of the skills needed by employers and those that  unemployed people have to offer, especially at the relatively unskilled end of the market.

[/quote]

I wouldn't have believed people at the "relatively unskilled end of the market" could be difficult to be taught other skills - I really hate the term "retraining" so often used in the UK, as it seems to equate people with dogs.

However, I recently hired a "gardener" offering his services on Leboncoin. He razed about half of our flowers and bushes to the ground, while preserving some particularly sturdy weeds, and dug up a large bed of autumn crocus bulbs, which he made into a pile, and announced he had found a lot of onions. He also raked out all the dry grass mulch under the hedge into a large pile and proudly told me he had cleared up the mess there.

I don't believe he could be taught to do anything useful, except maybe to supervise paint drying.

I also had a young man, about 21 or so, in England, a tenant in a house we rented, who couldn't pay.

I offered him work laying a small concrete slab, to pay off his debt. The first job was to dig out a shallow area in which to lay it, but he didn't know how to operate a spade. I tried for several minutes, but he couldn't get the hang of it, and walked off.

The armed forces once performed a very useful function, but now apparently require people with an IQ above double figures.

[BritinBretagne]

I’m surprised you bother with normal folk.

[nomoss]

[quote user="BritinBretagne"]I’m surprised you bother with normal folk.[/quote]

I presume that you are inferring that you are an example of normal folk?