...but not by the Government, according to a report from the Social Market Foundation. A piece in today's Guardian has the Foundation calling for more help for companies wanting to take long-term job seekers on as employees - we'd be talking tax breaks and similar incentives here I imagine.
Which is a good idea initially but I'm concerned about the longer term. Efforts to get people back to work when they're capable of it are excellent things; self-respect will increase, family life improves, there are many reasons to welcome a report like this. It could be a problem, though, that the Foundation appears to be putting the job-seeker's needs first rather than equal first with those of any business that's going to employ them. Longer term, if there's no business case for taking on and re-training a job seeker, they're bound to end up out of a job again.
Which really doesn't help.
