Informing debate on long-term unemployment

Bevan Foundation Director Dr Victoria Winckler discussed Chancellor George Osborne’s plans to require people who have been unemployed for more than two years to undertake community work, visit the Job Centre everyday or do compulsory training on BBC Radio Wales’s Morning Call programme on Monday, 30th September 2013.

Contributing alongside Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Simon Hart MP, Victoria outlined her concerns that the deeper difficulties faced by long-term unemployed people were not being recognised. The numbers of long-term unemployed who are simply “workshy” is almost certainly very small, she suggested, pointing to the six-fold increase in long-term unemployment in Wales since the onset of the recession as being unlikely to be due to an increase in laziness.

You can also read Victoria’s comments in a blog post here.