Sex work, job creation and the latest moral panic

The headline from the International Business Times was a moral panic classic: "UK Government Pays Sex Clubs To Employ Teenage Girls." But it is a headline that is misleading and it misses the point. It conjures up sordid images of underage girls being plucked from schoolyards by evil government sex traffickers to work as prostitutes.

What has actually happened is that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has paid cash incentives to a range of employers in the adult entertainment industry to hire unemployed people aged 18-24. Yes, if you are 18 you are a teenager - but you are also an adult in the eyes of the law and when you are an adult, you can work in for any legal employer in the adult entertainment industry. You may disapprove of the adult entertainment industry but if that's the case, you can go and do something else for a living.

The DWP distributed a list of the employers that can benefit from at least £2,000 in incentives funded by UK taxpayers. Here is the list:

1. Those involved in the sale, manufacture, distribution and display of sex related products;
2. Auxiliary workers in lap/pole dancing clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
3. Auxiliary workers in strip clubs – e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or cleaners;
4. Auxiliary workers in saunas/massage parlours e.g. bar staff, door staff, receptionists or clearers;
5. Glamour model photographers;
6. Web-cam operators;
7. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for adult channels on digital TV;
8. TV camera operators, sound technicians, producers/directors for pornographic films.

Like it or not, these are all perfectly legal ways to earn a living.

DWP rules stipulate that such employers can offer young jobseekers full-time work for up to 26 weeks as long as the jobseeker is not a performer nor performing sexual acts. Given the laws surrounding the legality of prostitution in the UK are rather muddy (and frankly ridiculous), this rule seems fair enough.

But it's not the morality of working in the adult entertainment industry that is the real problem here. The problem is that the UK government is turning the employers into welfare recipients in a scheme that doesn't do a damn thing to create long-term jobs. It doesn't matter if it's Sainsburys or Spearmint Rhino - this policy is stupid.

There is nothing to stop any employer from simply hiring someone for 26 weeks, getting rid of them and then hiring someone else for another 26 weeks to do the same job. This is not real, long-term job creation. This is simply a way for employers to hire staff at the expense of the taxpayer. Sure, the experience might lead to another job, or it might lead to another 26 weeks of temporary work elsewhere or it might lead to nowhere but long-term uncertainty. If any employer has work that needs to be done, they should hire staff and pay a living wage. This way, people have some financial security, they are less likely to be dependent on benefits, they pay tax and they are economically active consumers.

Similarly, if people are forced to do any job under the threat of losing unemployment benefits, whether it's in the adult entertainment industry or not, that is problematic. This harks back to the case last year of Cait Reilly, the graduate who had to forego work experience in a museum to work in Poundland or face losing fairly meagre unemployment payments. The museum experience would have helped her get a better-paid job relevant to her degree. Instead, she has ended up working in a Morrisons supermarket.

There is nothing wrong with working in a supermarket but there is plenty wrong with a system that is focused on number-crunching. This is all about forcing people in any job at taxpayer expense to make the unemployment figures look more attractive in time for the 2015 election. There is nothing in this policy that focuses on creating real jobs across a range of industries, looking at the individual situations of unemployed people on a case-by-case basis, or regional development so that jobs are not just created in expensive, crowded London. But none of that makes for a good headline.

In short, the pearl-clutching article from the International Business Times is simply another excuse to slag off the adult entertainment industry.



Image courtesy of the British Library, 1885

Exploitation, unemployment and the job snob myth

It is so easy to mock the plight of Cait Reilly, the geology graduate who took legal action against the Department of Work and Pensions after being forced to work at Poundland or lose her £53-a-week in unemployment benefits.

When the story first broke, there was the predictable outrage. "Is she too good to work at Poundland? Just because she has a degree, why does that make her so bloody special? She's just a lazy job snob! In my day, we left school at 15 and went down coal mines...".

How we laughed when Frankie Boyle wrote in The Sun that with her geology degree, he was astounded that "the ability to recognise a rock was not a recession-proof skill".

But, as is common to most kneejerk outrages, there was a lack of nuance in the venom. In order to work at Poundland, Reilly had to give up her volunteer post at a museum where she was gaining experience towards employment as a curator, a relevant career choice for her degree.

A couple of weeks stacking shelves at Poundland with no prospect of a paid job of any description is not a good outcome. It is a good thing that a three-judge panel at the Royal Courts of Justice ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) acted unlawfully.

There is nothing wrong with working at Poundland. There is, however, plenty wrong with Poundland using the work-for-the-dole scheme as a source of cheap labour. This is not a meaningful solution to Britain's unemployment problem. If there are jobs that need to be done at Poundland, Poundland should offer unemployed people those jobs and pay them appropriately.

Behold, a private company taking government money in lieu of hiring staff and paying them properly - how is that an acceptable solution to unemployment? Why would any Tory support that? Oh, except that it means a few boxes get ticked and it helps to inaccurately massage the unemployment figures...

There is not a single new job created by this policy and the only real winners are employers like Poundland who get paid by the taxpayers to save money on their wages bill.

To take a graduate in any field away from relevant voluntary work or internships - with the threat of losing benefits - is counter-productive and short-sighted. Surely it is better for graduates to gain valuable experience that will lead to a job relevant to their degree than to bung them in Poundland for a couple of weeks with no real opportunity at the end of the placement.

Indeed, internships and voluntary work can already turn into forms of exploitation without the added threat of losing benefits for graduates who must forego relevant work experience to ensure boxes are ticked and unemployment stats are inaccurately massaged.

If graduates can still receive unemployment benefits while undertaking relevant voluntary work or internships, this will improve their chances of getting a job that is not only satisfying (because, you know, God forbid somebody go to university with the aim of obtaining a meaningful job at the end of it all...) but probably better paid than being a shelf-stacker at Poundland.

Or perhaps this government is hell-bent on making education so unaffordable that more people simply won't bother to go to university. Maybe students who would otherwise have gone to university will simply leave school and go to work at Poundland rather than have any other ambition? Does that sound like the foundation for a nation of strivers, those people of whom David Cameron claims to be so fond?

As a result, graduates who end up in jobs related to their degrees will pay taxes, will probably be able to pay off student debts a teeny bit faster and they will become more economically active. And the graduates won't be taking up jobs at Poundland that do not require a university education and should be offered to unemployed people who are not necessarily degree-qualified. What Tory could possibly object to any of this?

Iain Duncan Smith, we eagerly await a new policy announcement on this one. Because, let's face it, David Cameron is highly unlikely to add you to the unemployment statistics.

UPDATE
Here is Cait Reilly's articulate response to the court decision and the controversy.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com