Employment: Universal Jobmatch Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Lister of Burtersett
Main Page: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Lister of Burtersett's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, to run a successful economy you need to make sure that you do not run it into the ground. I am very pleased to say that with today’s figures the employment rate, if you exclude full-time students, is now running at the same high level it peaked at before the crash. Therefore we have managed to put the right structural changes in place to get employment up to as high a level as it has ever been.
My Lords, Stephen O’Donnell, who runs the National Online Recruitment Awards, said:
“I think it’s criminally unfair to sanction jobseekers for not using such a clumsily built website, rife with spammers … identity thieves and anonymous job ads”.
Will the Minister give a firm assurance that no jobseeker will be sanctioned for failing to use that hopeless website?
My Lords, I make absolutely clear that it is not a hopeless website; it has been hugely misrepresented. Noble Lords in this House would not take criticism from a competitor interest quite as seriously as criticism from more disinterested sources. However, I can assure the noble Baroness that to the extent that anyone is sanctioned, that sanction does not stand. At the moment we are down to a vanishingly small number.