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On the front line
2011-03-01 04:58:35
28 February 2011 Last updated at 12:31 Share this page Delicious Digg Facebook reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Email Print On the front line: Iain Duncan Smith & the job hunters By Norman Smith Chief political correspondent, BBC Radio 4 Iain Duncan Smith, pictured here during a by-election visit to the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow, is spearheading a huge welfare shake-up Continue reading the main story Related Stories Q&A: Benefits overhaul At-a-glance: Benefits overhaul Radio 4 Profile: Iain Duncan Smith
Iain Duncan Smith describes welfare reform as his "mission". But it is a mission which he is now having to pursue in the teeth of an economic blizzard blowing the other way.
The problem is the lack of jobs for people to take up. A situation only likely to get worse as public sector job cuts begin to bite and more graduates come on to the labour market.
So to find out just how just tough it is to find work, I went with the work and pensions secretary on a visit to the Walthamstow Jobcentre Plus, in north-east London.
What quickly became clear was that the people here were hardly the workshy or unemployable.
Many were skilled workers, with good employment records, decent CVs and little, if any, previous experience of unemployment.
Robert, a carpenter, tells Mr Duncan Smith, that in 25 years he has never known it so difficult to find work, vacancies, he says, are often filled before he has even been able to apply for them.
He is also scathing about the lack of work created locally as a result of the Olympics. (Something Mr Duncan Smith promises to look into).
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