There are no jobs

I don't often go to Oxford, but had to go shopping there yesterday in a particular shop, and one thing I noticed was that they were after a sales assistant. But this wasn't just some small ad in the window, it was also prominently behind the till.

"So, you're a bit desperate for shop staff"
"We've put the thing in the window, in the paper, and had almost no-one coming in".

OK, they had a slightly specialised requirement, but we're talking fitting experience rather than brain surgery.

As I continued around Oxford, I noticed just how many other retail outlets had jobs. McDonalds, WH Smith, a couple of bookshops, a couple of cafes.

Now, you might think that this is some Oxford-specific problem. Expensive town and all that (but then again, estates like Blackbird Leys are very chavvy).

But then I started looking around the web at the McArthur Glen outlet centres. The one at Bridgend has 8 jobs, or around 1 job for every 10 shops. The one at Swindon, a cultural desert, has 7 jobs, or around in in 12 shops.

And of course, the last time that we were told that there were no jobs for the million-odd unemployed, lots of Poles came over and filled them.

The problem is not that there aren't jobs, it's that the job means a loss of benefits by so much that they'd rather shag their girlfriend/play Call of Duty/watch Jeremy Kyle than go to work for £1-2/hour. They're not lazy, they're just not stupid. As someone who works for themselves, I sometimes get call for people with £150 for a website, and in most cases, I politely decline, because my hourly rate will fall below £5/hour and I'd rather spend my time on training to help get higher paying clients than that.

The answer is the Citizen's Income. Get a fixed income for being an adult, enough to keep you from starving, but that's fixed rather than means tested. Go and get a job in WH Smith, you keep your Citizen's Income and get your WH Smith pay.