Temporary jobs and benefits don't mix

[Andy]

In a previous life I used to organise staff rotas. We had a number of part time staff. Occasionally we would have to ask someone if they were able to work extra hours, to cover for someone's holiday etc. I thought people would be grateful for the pay but they always refused because they said the extra pay would mess their tax credits up, and it would take ages to convince the tax office that the extra couple of hours were a one-off.

[ANGELFIRE1]

Agency work, contract jobs and temporory posts are a nightmare when it comes to signing on during down times.

 

It takes about 6 weeks to get a claim going properly. It just gets going when you get a temp job for 2 weeks, and afterwards you have to start a claim all over again. 3 weeks later the agency gets back to you with a further contract, a months work this time, but then your laid off after two, so it's back to claiming again from scratch, and so on....

 

Each time you're left without a job and money, you get further into debt either borrowing off friends (until they get fed up) or living off your credit card, just to keep body and soul together.

 

This is one of the reasons why some people are reluctant to take on temporory work. But as this seems to be the new way of working, surely the benefits agency can come up with a better system that matches the needs of the worker.

 

Or am I missing something?

 

 

Do you think this was a ploy by the last Government to overcomplicate the system on purpose there by making it very difficult to claim money. My wife suffered the same kind of debacle when doing temp work.

 

Regards

 

Angel.