Dearth of seasonal jobs undermine plan to get Britain back to work - Jayne Dowle

Retail and hospitality, traditionally where Christmas jobs are found, were sectors hit particularly hard by the October Budget’s rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions - from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April - and the minimum wage, going up £11.44 to £12.21 per hour.

These added looming costs sparked backlash from business leaders, who warned that the added tax bill would restrict hiring and pay rises.

Major retailers including Tesco, M&S, Boots and B&Q, all wrote to the Chancellor, saying that job losses were now “inevitable”, as a result of the “sheer scale” of the new costs on business.

And of course, we are still in the middle of a cost of living crisis that shows no sign of abating. People are shopping less and staying in more. They simply don’t have the money to spend on anything much other than essentials.

I know several young people struggling to find part-time work right now, even a few hours a week stacking supermarket shelves. They speak despairingly of hundreds of applicants for one post. This is so heartbreaking and dispiriting; a seasonal role has long been established as a route into more permanent work.

And then we wonder why so many people are – it’s reported – following social media influencers who are showing them how to opt successfully for claiming benefits rather than seeking work. The young, sadly, are highly susceptible to these so-called ‘sickfluencers’.

Amazingly, these individuals offer templates for claims and specific instructions on how to approach benefit assessments. Some even boast of their success rates in helping followers secure payments.

The phenomenon has sparked debate about the accessibility of benefits and concerns over manipulating the system.

But what can be expected, especially as it’s been proven that it can be more lucrative to be unemployed?

Sickness benefits are worth £3,000 a year more than a minimum wage job, according to a new analysis of Britain’s worklessness crisis by the Centre for Social Justice think tank.

Its recent investigation found low-paid workers are now trying to get themselves signed off with ill health in order to boost their income.

It found those on the top level of sickness benefits now earn an average of £23,900 a year while those on the minimum wage take home just £20,650 after tax.

The findings lay on the line fears the welfare system is too generous, encouraging people to choose a life on handouts over work. The number of British people signed off with long-term ill health alone has ballooned by 650,000 since the pandemic and now stands at 2.8 million.

The scale of benefit approvals has seen a dramatic surge in recent years, rising from 1,000 cases before the pandemic to more than 3,000 approvals per working day in March.

The number of benefit claimants is projected to exceed four million by the end of parliament. Official figures suggest that sickness benefits are expected to cost £100bn before the decade ends – more than the combined budgets for schools, the police and courts.

A Government spokesman says ministers had “inherited a spiralling benefits bill” from the previous Tory administration and pledged to “bring it down”. But there are several sides to this complex scenario, and the dire seasonal jobs situation puts it into sharp context.

It’s taken my own student daughter three months to secure a part-time job and she must have applied for at least 70 or 80. She’s planning to cling onto it for dear life.

And, although the seasonal jobs situation is worrying, the long-term context is worse. In the three months to October 2024, there were approximately 831,000 job vacancies across the whole of the UK, the fewest number since May 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.

What then of Sir Keir Starmer’s repeated pledges to “get Britain back to work”? Yes, there are vacancies, as there always will be. But opportunities to earn money through employment are clearly falling. Also, the stark headline figures do not take into account regional differences and the concentration of any available vacancies in larger cities, including London, leaving huge swathes of the UK left behind.