WORK EXPERIENCE - Just Imagine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An imaginary scene: Office of the Managing Director of a totally imaginary chain of imaginary supermarkets.

The Recruitment Manager is talking to Harry, Managing Director.

“I’ve some great news Harry; I can get shelf stackers for nothing”

“Really! You’re joking aren’t you? How?”

“The Government’s scheme “Work Experience”. The Government even pay their bus fares.”

“You must have it wrong, there’s got to be a mistake; we’ll have to pay them minimum wages as we always do”

“No Harry we don’t– they get their Job Seeker’s Allowance, paid by the Government and that’s it.”

“So you’re telling me we can get these people free, gratis and for nothing!”

“Exactly”

“There’s got to be a catch somewhere – how long do we get them for? And I suppose we have to offer them a job at the end.”

“We get them for eight weeks or so. Then they go and we get another lot. Of course, if we want to look good we could employ the odd one or two – we’ve always got vacancies, but there’s no obligation to do so. Let’s face it, shelf stacking’s pretty boring so if we do give the odd one or two a job they won’t stay long anyway and there’s plenty more where they come from.”

“Well let’s go for it then and increase our profitability”