The JSA is a Nightmare

Someone I know is on the UK’s Job Seeker Allowance programme. He’s had next to no job experience, so he has to do 13 weeks worth of volunteering to get his benefits. Which is fine – except it’s a nightmare. There’s loads of paperwork and every two weeks you have to sign on in one place and visit your ‘employment coach’ in another.

Which means if you’ve got a full-time volunteering job where you have to do 30 hours per week, you are going to have to make up for that hour or so you spend driving to the centre – where you sign a piece of paper and then getting back to your job. And that’s assuming you can drive. If you can’t drive the whole thing takes even longer. And the money you use for petrol or bus fare isn’t subsidised by the JSA or the Career Development Group (who run the volunteering placements) – so you’re already out of pocket before you’ve even got your first benefit instalment.

Told you – nightmare.