Why is government website carrying fake jobs?

[Magda Hassan]

Why is government website carrying fake jobs?

The government's Jobmatch website is carrying bogus vacancies from nine online recruitment agencies run by a Baptist deacon in Coventry, who makes money by encouraging visitors to post their CVs.



More than 11,000 positions currently advertised on the government's Universal Jobmatch website may be bogus, an investigation by Channel 4 News has found.
The jobs, which range from sous chefs to dry cleaners, account for almost one-in-50 of all those posted in Britain on the site and, in some areas, a third of all the jobs available on Jobmatch, may be fake.
Since March 2013 it has been mandatory for all jobseeker's allowance claimants to register and use the Jobmatch website.
Those who fail to do so can have their benefits cut entirely. But if some of the jobs on the site are not genuine, the claimants who have applied for them may have been wasting their time.
Theinvestigation found that nine apparently unconnected recruitment websites, advertising thousands of positions across the UK, are all controlled by one man in Coventry - Mark Coward, a businessman and Baptist deacon who has posted thousands of jobs.

Coward's company

In recent months, Coward has received thousands of pounds for marketing job products at applicants. Jobseekers who answered any one of thousands of ads posted by Coward were encouraged to visit a legitimate recruitment business, CV-Library, using links that showed Coward had recommended them.
He then received £1 for every CV successfully submitted to CV library. Coward later said that most of the original applications submitted to him for the jobs he posted were then simply deleted.
Last year Channel 4 News was contacted by Richard Evens, an out-of-work librarian who had concerns.
At first, Mr Evens was delighted when a raft of library jobs suddenly appeared on the Universal Jobmatch website. Each position was offered in a different area of the country but the job descriptions were identical.
Three companies posted the ads: Thomas Reilly Associates, MF Training and Recruitment Solutions and Que Consultants.
All are controlled by Coward, and his business network has many other identities. Jobs Junction, Career Nationwide, Recruitment 4 Office, Retail Jobs 4U, Career In Caring, and Find My New Job are all controlled by him.
Some of the websites associated with these businesses were registered anonymously but linked back to rental properties owned by Coward in Coventry.
It was under the names of Thomas Reilly Associates Ltd, a dormant recruitment company based at a PO box in London, and Que Consultants, a dissolved recruiter which employed Coward's wife Dionne, that most ads were posted however.

'Offshore outsource company'

Channel 4 News sought to establish the credibility of some of the adverts listed on the Universal Jobmatch by these firms. It was unable to find a dry cleaning job posted in Greenhithe, Kent, or sous chef position posted in Lairg in the Scottish Highlands.
One in three jobs located in Lairg and available on the Jobmatch website had been posted by Coward.
The search continued but, having failed to find any employers matching the job descriptions posted by the Cowards, we contacted them.
They said that they were unable to verify if the jobs were genuine because all the adverts they uploaded on the Universal Jobmatch website had been harvested by an "offshore outsource company", run by a man called Vikram Mishra in New Delhi.
Channel 4 News was unable to contact Mr Mishra at the address they gave in Delhi, and no trace of the company they claim to work with has been found. The Cowards "categorically reject any accusation that they willingly posted adverts for jobs that weren't authentic".
This afternoon, CV Library, the firm that paid the Cowards, told us that they have terminated the relationship.
Concerns about the quality of employer vetting on the Universal Jobmatch first emerged in 2012 when hackers posted a job advert for a "Target Elimination Specialist working for the British government" - "particularly suitable", so the ad said, "for those who like their martinis shaken and not stirred".
In response, the Department for Work and Pensions said they would vet employers to ensure that the jobs posted on the site are genuine.
Our investigation places question marks on thousands of them. Tonight the DWP told us: "The vast majority of those employers offer genuine roles for jobseekers to apply for - however we won't hesitate to ban the small minority who try to break the rules and post fraudulent jobs. When possible, it can and has led to criminal prosecutions.
"This individual has been suspended from the site and the vacancies removed. We take any allegations of this nature very seriously and will investigate any further evidence Channel 4 provides."

http://www.channel4.com/news/why-is-gove...-fake-jobs

[Magda Hassan]

I remember a friend was working in the government department in charge of employment in the late 1970's early '80s and he was told from on high that they would be abandoning any 'full employment' goals. Being only a middle ranking worker drone in the public service department at the time he couldn't understand it. Capitalism loves a nice big pool of unemployed to keep pressure on wages low. The very last thing a government for capitalists want is full employment. And the fact is that there simply are not enough jobs to go around for every one that wants one. We need to re think our whole attitude and relationship to work, labour, income and leisure.

[David Guyatt]

I remember a friend was working in the government department in charge of employment in the late 1970's early '80s and he was told from on high that they would be abandoning any 'full employment' goals. Being only a middle ranking worker drone in the public service department at the time he couldn't understand it. Capitalism loves a nice big pool of unemployed to keep pressure on wages low. The very last thing a government for capitalists want is full employment. And the fact is that there simply are not enough jobs to go around for every one that wants one. We need to re think our whole attitude and relationship to work, labour, income and leisure.

I fell sure this was a Thatcher government "initiative" - as you say, keep an unemployed pool high to keep them keen and press wages down. For me, the same thing is happening with the influx of cheap labour from eastern Europe and the southern hemisphere. The whole strategy is to depress accepted wage standards down to the very minimum - with almost zero protection on the exploitation side of things.

Likewise, everyone has known for years, probably decades, that there are always far more applicants for jobs - usually dozens upon dozens -- and far less jobs available. This clearly suggests that the whole government strategy on their treatment of the unemployed is utterly sinister.

Spread fear, keep workers mean, keep wages low ---- it's all about control.

And all the political parties play the same game. Because they are all the same, with political differences being mostly a shadow play.

[David Guyatt]

All part of the same basic story...

'A disgrace': Catholic leader Vincent Nichols attacks Coalition's welfare reforms

Friday 14 February 2014

The leading Roman Catholic cleric in England and Wales has branded the Coalition's welfare reforms as a "disgrace" which leave vulnerable people facing "hunger and destitution".

Cardinal-designate Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the Government had decimated even the most "basic safety net" for those threatened by poverty.
The leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales also said that the welfare system had become more "punitive", leaving people with nothing if they fail to fill in forms correctly.
In an interview with the Telegraph, the Archbishop said: "People do understand that we do need to tighten our belts and be much more responsible and careful in public expenditure.
"But I think what is happening is two things: one is that the basic safety net that was there to guarantee that people would not be left in hunger or in destitution has actually been torn apart.
"It no longer exists and that is a real, real dramatic crisis.
"And the second is that, in this context, the administration of social assistance, I am told, has become more and more punitive.
"So if applicants don't get it right then they have to wait for 10 days, for two weeks with nothing - with nothing.
"For a country of our affluence, that quite frankly is a disgrace."
The Archbishop's criticisms come after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, a practising Catholic, hit out at the Church of England for savaging aspects of his reforms last year.
Mr Duncan Smith accused top Anglican clergymen, including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, of ignoring the concerns of ordinary people after they signed a letter claiming that capping benefit rises would have a "deeply disproportionate" effect on children.
He said the system was "out of control" and simply "giving more and more money" would not help.
"There is nothing moral or fair about a system that I inherited that trapped people in welfare dependency," he added.
Cardinal-designate Nichols is one of 19 senior clerics chosen by Pope Francis to be elevated to the Roman Catholic clergy's second highest rank.
It means he will be granted a place at the conclave which will elect the next pope.
The Archbishop is one of only two Europeans on a list of clergymen to be made Cardinals next week, aside from those already holding senior offices at the Holy See, with the rest hailing from the developing world.
Since his election as pope in March last year Francis has cultivated a radical image, challenging politicians over their treatment of immigrants and adopting a more tolerant stance towards homosexuality.
PA