The Hidden Unemployed

I've been signing into a few internet forums lately, and they often ask for your "occupation".  Well, I'm not too proud to admit it, currently I am unemployed.  I do no paid work for anyone.  I'd certainly LIKE to, but I'm not too sure I'd be able to, nor whether I could find anyone who'd actually employ me.  Mind you, I certainly am able to do productive work, it's just that my health precludes me from doing it at scheduled times, day in, day out.

My wife, bless her, works full time, in a reasonably good job for a government based organisation.

According to the federal government, then, I am actually NOT unemployed.  I do not appear in the statistics you hear on the news and in the papers.  Despite the fact that I am looking for work, would like a job and am not currently working in a job, by their definition, I am NOT unemployed.

I figure there are quite a few others like me in the same boat.  If your spouse works, and earns even minimum wages, you are not eligible for a vast array of assistance measures given to other unemployed people.  I am registered with several employment agencies, and I have a jobseeker ID.  However every time I apply for a job which has an employment agency screening applications, I do not get a look-in.  (I have applied directly for jobs and even gotten to interviews as a result, but if I apply via an agency I have never been so much as contacted by that agency about my application).  The reason for this is if the agency does find me a job, they will not get a cent from the government for doing so.  Naturally, if they are referring people to a job they will send someone on benefit so they get a subsidy for the job placement.  And if they send someone whose employment prospects are impaired (eg disabled, long term unemployed, ex-criminal) the subsidy is even higher.

As an employer, you are encouraged to use an agency to find you staff.  I can state to you that if you do, you are more likely to be sent a candidate who is difficult to find employment for.  IE the one with the highest subsidy.  This may NOT be your first choice, and you may simply be better taking an ad in the paper and screening the applicants yourself: you will at least get candidates who are keen to find work.

Even if I were eligible for unemployment assistance, the tendency is for the agencies to send candidates who have been out of work longer, and offer assistance programmes to longer-term unemployed.  Those of us who have been out of work for only a few months - the ones who are probably most employable and productive - do not qualify for any assistance at all at this early stage of our unemployment.

Crazy but true.  And take heed of the record low unemployment figures being quoted these days.  There is so much hidden unemployment (and indeed under-employment) I reckon the true figure is probably closer to double the headline figures.