by René Lavanchy
GOVERNMENT departments have belatedly accepted that they should advertise jobs through the Government’s own jobcentres, the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed this week.
The DWP says it has secured a guarantee from every Whitehall department, as well as the TUC and 19 other businesses, that they will use Jobcentre Plus to advertise all their non-specialist vacancies.
However, the move – which will boost the number of jobs to apply for mainly in London and the south-east – is unlikely to dent current trends in rising unemployment, according to a report this week which found that jobless figures are rising most sharply in the Midlands, south Wales and parts of the north.
The agreement comes nearly two months after Gordon Brown and Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell set up the National Employment Partnership to encourage businesses to work closer with government to place people in jobs. As part of the scheme, jobcentres and employers are expected to co-operate and provide jobseekers with guaranteed interviews, training, work experience and other help in so-called “local employment partnerships”.
A DWP spokesperson told Tribune: “In the last couple of months, as part of a concerted drive, we have spoken to every Government department. We are delighted to say that they are now all committed to local employment partnerships. They have agreed to advertise all of their vacancies with Jobcentre Plus and a substantial number of those that they advertise will be through local employment partnerships.”
Most Whitehall jobs will now be able to be applied for through job centres. The civil service currently employs around 490,000 staff in 23 central government departments and 66 executive agencies, from the Meat Hygiene Service to Jobcentre Plus itself.
About 23,000 people entered the service on permanent contracts in 2007-08.
A report published by the Work Foundation this week found that the rate of people claiming unemployment benefit has risen to eight per cent in the city of Hull and Blaenau Gwent in South Wales, against a national average of 3.4 per cent. Birmingham saw the highest increase in the absolute number of claimants over the last year, up by 12,383 since February 2008.
The Work Foundation commented: “The analysis suggests that the local authority areas that have experienced the biggest jumps in the numbers claiming benefits are the ‘core cities’ of the North, the West Midlands and Scotland, and areas linked with traditional manufacturing and heavy industry that have suffered disproportionately in previous recessions.”
Responding to the Government’s initiatives, Naomi Clayton, the report’s author, commented: “I suppose you’d be trying to create jobs across the country. The civil service is predominantly located in London and the south-east.”
