FORMER PM Gordon Brown slams the “lottery-style” odds of finding a job in the UK as thousands chase vacancies – with 2,154 people applying for one administrator post in Coventry.
It comes as a study by the Alliance For Full Employment (AFFE), which Mr Brown formed with politicians across the country, revealed a “shocking” vacancies-to-jobseeker ratios.
New data on vacancies analysed by the AFFE included a 15,000 people chasing 10 assembly operative jobs in Birmingham; 4,228 applicants for a trainee paralegal legal position in London; 1,000 applications for a receptionist role at a restaurant in London and 2,154 applicants for an administrator position in Coventry.
Another 2,653 applicants went for an assembly operative position in Sunderland; there were 2,932 applications to be a warehouse worker in Northumberland; and 1,656 applicants to be an NHS 111 call handler in London.
Mr Brown said: “You’re almost as likely to win the National Lottery as this jobs lottery. This is not the levelling up that we were promised.”
He urged the Government to enact an emergency jobs recovery programme.
The former prime minister, who is addressing Labour’s “virtual” conference on Tuesday, said that with millions more people facing redundancy after the furlough scheme ends on October 31, the prospects of gaining employment will diminish still further.
The odds of finding a job are the worst in 50 years, with thousands of people chasing a handful of vacancies at firms across the UK, research by the Alliance For Full Employment suggests.
Before the pandemic, job vacancies were usually around 500,000 – one for every two to three people unemployed. Job vacancies now have fallen to 330,000, lower than in the recession that followed the financial crash a decade ago, Mr Brown said.
