Labour won the election on a pro-worker platform, but the role of the welfare system in this hasn’t received much attention. If Labour is going to deliver on its good jobs agenda, it is critical that employment policy steps up to serve it. Central to that is scrapping the ‘any jobs’ approach to welfare policy, shifting the role of Jobcentres from processing and punishment to support and investment, and the repositioning of the DWP as a central partner for delivering on Labour’s growth mission.
What’s wrong with the ‘any jobs’ approach?
Thanks to the policies of successive governments, the UK is now internationally recognised as an archetypal ‘work first’ welfare regime. This approach has required jobseekers to move into any job quickly, regardless of job quality or whether or not the work they are applying for fits their capabilities, circumstances or responsibilities outside of work. Conditionality and sanctions have become the main tools of our employment ‘support’ service, with Jobcentres focused overwhelmingly on monitoring the activities of benefit claimants and imposing financial penalties on those deemed not to have complied with intensive work search requirements. Examples of tangible support are hard to come by – even the most empathetic and skilled work coach would be hard pressed to do anything meaningful in a 10-minute appointment. The Conservative government was set to pursue more of the same, extending work search requirements to people already in work – an internationally unprecedented ‘work first, work more’ approach.
The ‘work first’ or ‘any jobs’ policy doesn’t serve anyone. While associated with faster movements into employment, the work people move into is often of poor quality and unsustainable. And once people move into poor-quality work, they often get trapped there – making efforts centred on supporting workers to progress a non-starter. In analysis of more than 100 interviews with workers who had engaged with our social security system, we found that welfare conditionality disempowered and propelled claimants towards inadequate pay, insecurity and poor employment terms. For example, as Leanne*, a 37-year-old retail worker on a short insecure contract explained,
[Jobcentres] pressured [you] to apply for jobs that you didn’t want … [and] if you got offered them you’d have to take them otherwise your money would be stopped … I haven’t got set days. Again, like tonight, I’m working until six. Monday I worked until eight … I took a job that wasn’t beneficial to me or the children … My family life, my home life suffers.
The Conservatives’ ‘work first, work more’ approach looked set to ramp up the pressure on working people, failing to tackle the real causes of in-work poverty. Labour must do better.
Pro-worker, pro-business and pro-growth?
Under the existing UK welfare regime, insecure workers can feel trapped between a punitive welfare system and exploitative employers. As Joel*, a 54-year-old kitchen porter working variable hours reflects,
It’s as if they’re all in cahoots together. [Employers] can get rid of you just like willy-nilly because they know they can get anybody else sent to them but from the Jobcentre.
While some employers may welcome policies that pressurise people into poorly paid, low-quality roles, these are surely not the kind of businesses that a pro-growth Labour party would want to prop up.
But many employers are actually far from being satisfied customers – inundated by a high volume of inappropriate applications, submitted to meet the blunt requirements of job search regulations, and receiving limited support to effectively recruit and manage those with more complex needs. Just as many jobseekers don’t see Jobcentres as places that help them to find jobs, too many employers do not see them as places that can support them to find workers. This needs to change.
Scrapping ‘work first’ therefore isn’t just a pro-worker policy, it’s also pro-business. Ensuring that employment policies support good businesses to recruit, retain and progress their staff, and that they are aligned with broader industrial priorities should be part of wider agendas centred on more inclusive and productive labour markets. The DWP must become (and must be viewed as) a key stakeholder in the good work agenda and growth mission. But there is a long way to go to turn this around.
Grounds for (cautious) optimism
There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the prospects of a new approach under a Labour government. Labour’s manifesto positioned employment support as a driver of growth and opportunity, and promised to create a national jobs and careers service that is ‘responsive to local employers, inclusive for all users, and works in partnership with other local services’. Alongside a focus on improving the demand side through its New Deal for Working People, guarantees of access to training and work experience are welcome steps (getting rid of needless restrictions on engaging in training for Universal Credit claimants more generally could also be a quick win here). Commitments to working with the Scottish and Welsh governments, and English Mayors and Combined Authorities are also encouraging – as is a shift in tone through engagement with experts outside government. Listening to outside expertise – whether from jobseekers, low-paid workers, employers, trade unions and researchers – is key to ensuring that policies are developed by and delivered for those with different needs in different places.
But there is a risk that an entrenched fear of looking ‘soft on welfare’ dilutes these ambitions. Conditionality remains firmly in place (‘there will be consequences for those who do not fulfil their obligations’), but at the very least we should expect to see a significant repositioning of it in our system. Progressive policy makers should be buoyed by consensus among academics and leading think tanks who advocate a shift away from sanctions-backed conditionality as the core guiding principle, and who are proposing alternatives with ‘good work’ taking centre stage. This isn’t about being ‘soft’. This is about offering an alternative and ambitious vision of employment support policies that align with progressive economic and social ambitions. To deliver on good work, the UK’s ‘any jobs’ approach must go.
*not their real names
Dr Katy Jones is a Reader in Employment and Head of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has previously held research positions at The Work Foundation and the University of Salford. Her research focuses on support for people to move into and progress in (good) work, mainly in relation to active labour market policy and vocational education, and with a particular focus on those most disadvantaged in the labour market. She is passionate about engaging with policy makers and ensuring research is impactful and accessible to a wide audience.
Image credit: Radharc Images via Alamy Stock Photo