This has come after the government in Belarus made being unemployed illegal for people living in the Eastern European country. Only children, disabled people, parents with three or more children and those who are retired are exempt, while those affected could face fines of 3.6 million Belarussian roubles (£170), detention or compulsory community service.
While Davies suggests this law appears harsh, it should encourage the next UK government to consider how they approach job seekers.
“People should be penalised more than they are if they are not attempting to find work and there should also be a method for benefitting those who succeed,” said Will Davies, who in 2012 launched the Unemployment Bootcamp scheme with aspect.co.uk which gave a certain number of candidates an apprenticeship at the end of the day.
“Why not have negative taxation like a rebate? If someone gets a job who is coming off Job Seekers’ Allowance – let’s incentivise more than we are”.
Meanwhile, there have been recent reports which suggest that job seekers feel particularly discouraged in finding work due to pay.
Job seekers are increasingly put off by big business greed with multi-million pound bosses’ bonuses being publicly scrutinised on a daily basis.
Most recently, the boss of retailers Next, Lord Simon Wolfson, announced that he’ll give up his own bonus, believed to have been in the region of £5 million, to subsidise a five percent pay rise for shop workers.
Davies believes this should be encouraged across every sectors.
“There could a policy whereby any business offering top earners over a certain figure per head must also then commit to paying an increased minimum wage,” adds Davies.
“Take football clubs for example – yes they can pay their players crazy salaries but only if they also commit to pay their low earners an increased minimum – maybe just a couple of pounds more per hour”.
