The Anonymous Widower

Cutting Unemployment

I run a couple of small businesses; one is a computer software firm and the other is a thoroughbred stud. 

I have a problem on the stud in that work is distinctly seasonal and so some of the essential maintenance jobs that no-one really likes to do, get put to the bottom of the queue, when other more important things come up.  For instance, if it means having an injured horse for rest after a racing injury, which requires extra care time, then this will take precedence over say painting fences or renewing a badly worn gateway, because the former is better for your cash flow.

In the past twenty years or so, whilst my late wife and I have run the stud, we’ve often needed someone for say a month or two for these maintenance and other tasks.  Usually, we’ve subcontracted to a building firm, who don’t like these sort of small jobs and charge much more than say employing someone for a couple of months.

What is needed is a computer system based on the technology used on many web sites, to match the unemployed to the small jobs available.  The site might be something like a cross between a dating-site for something like The Times and eBay.

Suppose you chose someone from this web site for a job that would last anything upwards of a week. 

You would pay the site, which would then pay the employee directly and automatically adjust their benefit, so that they avoided the problem of going on and off benefit.  After they’d finished, you would then assess their work and post it with ratings on the web site.

I think that this would have benefits for both employers and claimants. 

Employers and especially small ones, would have a simple means of bridging that temporary labour problem without any great hassle.  They could also read the references of those available for employment in their area and may well choose an employee whose skills and experience matched their needs.  In the case of the stud, I’d probably do jobs where I can easily find people to do them.  For instance, I have several painting jobs that need doing, so if I found someone, who had experience of industrial painting, then that job would be done.

Claimants would benefit from the work and the extra money, and because they were rated, this would increase their chances of getting full employment.  The system would also benefit, those who perhaps because of circumstances like age, children and disability, did not need or want to work all of the year.

It is an idea, that I feel needs to be examined.  As a computer scientist, I don’t believe that setting it up would be the biggest of technological problems, although asking the government to do it would probably be a disaster.

February 11, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | Business, Computing | Politics, Unemployment