A century of labour to help jobless find work

After the passage of the 1909 Labour Exchange Act the first 62 labour exchanges were opened the following year in abandoned offices, disused factories, shops and even chapels. Thirteen were opened initially in Yorkshire, and the first recruitment drive countrywide saw 20,000

people applying for posts, drawing staff from all walks of life including works managers, ex-soldiers and "ladies with a passion for service". Among the first jobs advertised were piano regulator, picture frame gilder and girl confectionery packer.

The Labour Exchanges, along the lines of the German model were driven forward by a Liberal government that wished to tackle poverty,

organise the labour market better and help what it called "the deserving poor".

Early attempts to cater to the needs of local jobseekers included, in the Leeds Labour Exchange, a Yiddish-speaking clerk who was "familiar with the conditions obtaining among his co-religionists". Initially, labour exchanges helped people to find work and employers to find workers but with the passing of the National Insurance Act in 1911, the first unemployment benefits were also paid by the exchanges.

Only selected trades were covered – building, engineering and

shipbuilding. National Insurance contributions stamp cost two and a half old pence per week and it was stuck into an unemployment book, later the National Insurance card. Unemployment benefit paid seven shillings for week for up to 15 weeks, and sick pay was 10 shillings for up to six months.

In 1918, the Dole was introduced as a temporary measure, paid to

unemployed ex-soldiers and their dependants and civilians left unemployed by the decline of war production industries.

Today the labour exchange is called Jobcentre Plus, and there are 750 around the UK, employing almost 83,000 staff who help jobseekers to find employment from 10,000 new jobs on the database every day. Operators receive 81,000 calls each day and benefit centres process 20,000 claims for benefits daily.

In the early days, labour exchanges were lucky if they had one telephone, and job seekers had to call in to the office to look for work, which would be displayed on cards on the wall. Today, customers can look for vacancies online at home, or at computer job-points in a Jobcentre Plus office.

Claims for Jobseekers' Allowance can be taken by post, phone, online or in person. Unemployment benefit was originally paid in cash; today it is paid by transfer into bank accounts; for many years in between it was paid by Giro cheque. Nowadays customers are mostly interviewed by appointment, avoiding the long queues of the past.

When Bradford-born Ian Hastings left university and joined the civil service 34 years ago, he first worked in an unemployment office in Dundee, taking claims for benefit and assessing them.

It seemed a very old-fashioned organisation, he says, with all records updated by hand.

Since 1975 Ian has moved jobs within the organisation every three or four years, and he is now external relations manager for Jobcentre Plus, the latest incarnation of the old Labour Exchange, and part of the Department for Work and Pensions.

He's based at the Yorkshire and Humber regional office in Leeds, and the job involves continually gathering information on the regional labour market then briefing staff and discussing the effects on the job vacancies.

Since 2003, the old unemployment benefit has been called Jobseeker's Allowance,and is now 50.95 a week for 16-24-year-olds and 64.30 for those over 25. Claimants who are available and fit for work are entitled to six months of this contributions-based allowance; after

that it is income/capital-tested.

"It has always been a complicated system, but I think the service is better than 20 or 30 years ago," says Ian. "It's complex because people's lives are complicated, for instance we look at how many children there are in a household, whether the claimant is living with anyone, and whether there's an entitlement to tax credits. If you are dishing out public money, you have to ask a lot of questions before you do it."

A great deal of work goes into processing new claims. The target is 11 working days, but the average is 10.

"The longer you're out of work the more we do for you. At the beginning, a person sees an adviser, who handles their benefit claim. Advice about jobs is given, job searches are done by the claimant using computers in the Jobcentre Plus office or via our website from elsewhere. The job search pages receive around one million hits a day in Yorkshire and the Humber."

The claimant attends Jobcentre Plus for a fortnightly chat and to show evidence of actively seeking work. Three months in to their unemployment, staff become more actively involved.

"Sometimes we're seen as benefits policemen, but staff very much see the job as helping people to leave unemployment and go forward.

"Most people I've come across in my career are in it because they really believe that work really is is the best form of welfare."

The other part of Ian Hastings's job is as regional co-ordinator for the Future Jobs Fund, an initiative announced late last year which aims to create 170,000 new jobs, primarily aimed at 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for about a year. The FJF is a part of the Young Person's Guarantee, whereby everyone aged 18-24 who has been looking for work for a year will get an offer of a job, work experience, or training lasting at least six months. The initiative specifically targets hotspots like Hull, which has the highest jobless rate in the country.

"We're trying to tackle generational unemployment and young people signing on long-term by interviewing them early and outreach work in Hull, Leeds, and Bradford, setting up shop in community centres. Staff try to demonstrate to people that they're better off in work. The vast majority would be better off working."

Unemployment nationally is running at about 1.6 million, with 240,000 of the unemployed in Yorkshire and the Humber, and regional

unemployment running at 7.8 per cent. Within that figure are people who become unemployed, sign on for benefit, then sign off again within a month. An additional 709,000 are "economically inactive" including the long-term ill and students, as well as carers and parents who stay at home.

Many people only sign on for two weeks. Over a year there will be 10 to 11 million vacancies within the economy, with a third of those jobs advertised at Jobcentre Plus. The biggest area of vacancies is in care work.

Thinking creatively is part of what Jobcentre Plus is about. One initiative that seems to be paying off, says Ian Hastings, is "work trials", where employers agree to give someone a two-week trial at a job while they are still claiming benefit. Areas of concern to the Government are ethnic minorities, where employment levels are low. Ian Hastings says: "Inroads are being made, and some of the problem is definitely down to a lack of understanding of the system."

The recent phenomenon of large-scale executive unemployment has meant a new kind of training for Jobcentre Plus staff, and some of the jobseekers have ended up joining the service.

If he could wave a magic wand and instantly improve things for the unemployed, what would would he like to do?

"I'd like to create more understanding – of the fact that most people who are out of work are in their situation for a good reason and are not skiving, but the unemployed sometimes get a bad press.; and more understanding between employers and job seekers about what they each want. Does that sound a bit naive?"

n www.direct.gov.uk/backtowork