Possible employment solution.

bogwalrus

Solution:

An unemployed person approaches a number of local businesses that they think they can contribute to.

They agree with the business to work a number of hours a week at no charge but the business gives them credit in the store equivalent to the minimum wage on the hours worked.


The benefit is that the company is not handing over cash but product and in many ways gains a new customer. Also because the product usually has a %40 margin that means the business is really "paying" less than the minimum wage when you do all the sums.


A few Examples of where this would suite both employer and employee:

• A large supermarket as this means they can use the credit to buy groceries.
  
• A petrol station as this can pay the petrol and other "on the way home" bits.
  
• A restaurant as this would be nice to have credit in especially if you work there once a week so a nice meal out once a week would be great.
  
• Woodies DIY for man toys of course=)

Most towns and areas have these types of businesses so its not unrealistic to have a large number of people employed under the above "scheme" where the work is mutually beneficial.

The above are just some ideas. I think if people are on the social welfare they should be able to work for store credit and keep their allowance as this would really help businesses out in these very difficult times while giving work to those who really want it.

Just a thought but would love to hear some comments

Boggy

Glenvw

Is that kinda like bartering

michael999999

And who would pay the public liability insurance?

NinjaTruncs

Why should they get to keep their social welfare payments.

It seems like this system would be abused. They'll just claim dole then work 10 hours a week in a shop and get 100 worth of food, so effectively 300 a week in dole.

It would render minimum wage jobs obsolete.

Edit. Also we don't need to stimulate services jobs we need to simulate manufacturing jobs. That will then look after the service lead industry.

bogwalrus

Glenvw wrote: »

Is that kinda like bartering

I suppose it is really. You scratch my back I scratch yours.

bogwalrus

michael999999 wrote: »

And who would pay the public liability insurance?

I imagine all businesses pay PL so they would continue to do so as the person would still have to be on the books but just paid with credit. I might be missing something here though.

jhegarty

Who pays the dole for people displaced by the new barter workers ?

michael999999

And only so many people can work in a grocery store/pub. Which is where everyone would want to work!

Phoebas

How would the Revenue get its cut?

bogwalrus

jhegarty wrote: »

Who pays the dole for people displaced by the new barter workers ?

I think businesses would want to keep the majority of their staff on with the minimum wage as normal but they now have an option of hiring these barter workers to help make the business stronger.

Glenvw

They could also be called Ronin or Ronins

hickory

It's like butter vouchers only this time you have to work to get them. Genius!

bogwalrus

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Why should they get to keep their social welfare payments.

It seems like this system would be abused. They'll just claim dole then work 10 hours a week in a shop and get 100 worth of food, so effectively 300 a week in dole.

It would render minimum wage jobs obsolete.

Edit. Also we don't need to stimulate services jobs we need to simulate manufacturing jobs. That will then look after the service lead industry.

Very good point. The only reason I was thinking they should hold on to the payment as the "barter worker" could not pay rent and bills as they are only getting credit.

Maybe the dole payment could be halved for these kinds of workers?

I don't however think it would render minimum wage jobs obsolete as I feel businesses would want to keep a certain amount of people on the books as paid workers because a "barter worker" would be too much risk as they are after all only working for credit.

They are not a real risk to the business hiring them as the jobs would mainly be low skilled jobs and easily replaced by another "barter worker"

bogwalrus

hickory wrote: »

It's like butter vouchers only this time you have to work to get them. Genius!

But this time the cost is on businesses as they are providing the credit not the state.

bogwalrus

michael999999 wrote: »

And only so many people can work in a grocery store/pub. Which is where everyone would want to work!

Glad you said this so now I can explain more.

All the workers could be part time even working just one 9hr day per week meaning you could hire 7 different people a week. A 9hr shift would earn you around €80 which is enough for a weekly shop. So basically in one week 7 different workers could work one day each and feed their families.

Each of those workers could then spend a day in a local garage to pay the petrol etc etc.

bogwalrus

jhegarty wrote: »

Who pays the dole for people displaced by the new barter workers ?

I'm answering your question again cause i just did a few rough sums.

Lets say a supermarket does replace staff with barter staff. They can also now afford to hire even more barter staff as the payment method is favourable to their kind of business (always loads of wastage in supermarkets).

So 5 staff get replaced and 10 new barter staff get hired with a halved social welfare payment. This cancels the dole payments except we now have 10 people working instead of 5 and the business is benefiting from all the extra workers.

I really do think if people were given the opportunity to work even with a reduced welfare payment they would do so. The work could lead them to be permanent workers eventually.

NinjaTruncs

You're example above won't work, you have now just done away with one full time and one part time employee, are you telling me companies like tesco/dunnes and so on aren't going to abuse this, like they currently do with job bridge.

Say the 5 people keep their jobs we are paying 10 people full dole. if those 5 lose their jobs we are paying dole for them and 5 doles for the 10 "barter" workers which is 10 full dole payments so we're where we started, except all the 10 barterers are now getting free food and petrol, which means less tax/vat take for the government.

Seeing are you keep trying to push this as a workable idea, I'll some out straight, it's an awful idea which just takes money away from the government and gives it to people on social welfare and business owners, who all get enough imo.

michael999999

bogwalrus wrote: »

I'm answering your question again cause i just did a few rough sums.

Lets say a supermarket does replace staff with barter staff. They can also now afford to hire even more barter staff as the payment method is favourable to their kind of business (always loads of wastage in supermarkets).

So 5 staff get replaced and 10 new barter staff get hired with a halved social welfare payment. This cancels the dole payments except we now have 10 people working instead of 5 and the business is benefiting from all the extra workers.

I really do think if people were given the opportunity to work even with a reduced welfare payment they would do so. The work could lead them to be permanent workers eventually.

So now you have 10 people claiming some form of social instead of 5!

I don't see where your coming from?

NinjaTruncs

michael999999 wrote: »

So now you have 10 people claiming some form of social instead of 5!

I don't see where your coming from?

Its actually 15 social welfare payments. As well as an increase in an additional 5 rent allowence payments.

bogwalrus

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Say the 5 people keep their jobs we are paying 10 people full dole. if those 5 lose their jobs we are paying dole for them and 5 doles for the 10 "barter" workers which is 10 full dole payments so we're where we started, except all the 10 barterers are now getting free food and petrol, which means less tax/vat take for the government.

You calculated it wrong here I think. 5 lose their jobs and 10 who were previously on the dole are now replaced cancelling things out. I think you forgot to take under account the other 5 people that have now halved their dole to do the work.

Another (very rough) calculation I did was the following:

Ireland's unemployment rate is around 15% so roughly 450K people unemployed at a cost of roughly €200pp per week so thats 90 million a week the government is paying out.

Lets assume 50K of these people would be willing to half their social welfare payment in order to do some sort of work. The state is then saving 10 million per week because these people are now working.

Lets also assume that businesses will abuse this and replace staff so I am going to reduce the number employed to around 20K. That still means a saving of 4million per week. A huge number.

Also if you take under account the tax on the products that the worker has credit on it will mean more products are being "purchased" using this credit system rather than being saved and stored away or lost etc. They aren't getting it for free after all.

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Seeing are you keep trying to push this as a workable idea, I'll some out straight, it's an awful idea which just takes money away from the government and gives it to people on social welfare and business owners, who all get enough imo.

I don't want to push anything. I just like attempting to be creative with solutions when things are truly economically tough. Maybe it wont work but maybe just maybe there is something in it that can be drawn out and might actually solve some employment issues. That's why I posted it to hammer it out to see where it might go. Not to push it but I can see it has made you mad for some reason.

bogwalrus

michael999999 wrote: »

So now you have 10 people claiming some form of social instead of 5!

I don't see where your coming from?

No no, Those ten were already on the social welfare and are now getting it halved due to the employment.

If there is ten people on the dole and they get their dole halved it is the equivelant of now 5 people on the dole. So 5 get fired ten get hired on half dole. They cancel each other out.

I think so anyway. Maths was never a strong point of mine so if i'm wrong here then yes the idea is truly out the window.


In the ideal situation I just want to see a percentage of the unemployed work force working that can actually save the state money while making businesses stronger. For me its that simple and I just thought I might have found a solution or one that could be hammered out.

michael999999

bogwalrus wrote: »

No no, Those ten were already on the social welfare and are now getting it halved due to the employment.

If there is ten people on the dole and they get their dole halved it is the equivelant of now 5 people on the dole. So 5 get fired ten get hired on half dole. They cancel each other out.

I think so anyway. Maths was never a strong point of mine so if i'm wrong here then yes the idea is truly out the window.


In the ideal situation I just want to see a percentage of the unemployed work force working that can actually save the state money while making businesses stronger. For me its that simple and I just thought I might have found a solution or one that could be hammered out.

But you now have 15 people doing the work that 5 were doing.

So if 5 people were doing 200 hrs p.w. 40 each

You now have 15 doing 200 hrs p.w. 13 each

That sounds like more of a headache to me if I'm running a business to be honest.

And you can't just sack people, what about all the redundancy payments. And claims for unfair dismissal?

bogwalrus

michael999999 wrote: »

But you now have 15 people doing the work that 5 were doing.

So if 5 people were doing 200 hrs p.w. 40 each

You now have 15 doing 200 hrs p.w. 13 each

That sounds like more of a headache to me if I'm running a business to be honest.

I think there is a few ways of looking at this.

The idea wont work if it replaces current workers. That's clear from the above discussions.

Do I think 20K unemployed workers currently on the social welfare can be added to the work force with their welfare payments halved. Most certainly yes if it is the right kind of work and there was some sort of credit incentive from the business similar to what has been discussed.

Think about it. Its only 20k people. There is roughly 1000 supermarkets in Ireland. Each one only has to give work to 20 of these workers a week (only a days work) for the government to make a saving of 4 million per week.

Remember these workers were already claiming the dole so its not like they just came out of the blue.

NinjaTruncs

bogwalrus wrote: »

You calculated it wrong here I think. 5 lose their jobs and 10 who were previously on the dole are now replaced cancelling things out. I think you forgot to take under account the other 5 people that have now halved their dole to do the work.

That's assuming all the workers let go can get work, however your calculations are only taking Dole into account what about rent allowance, medical cards and so on.

bogwalrus wrote: »

Also if you take under account the tax on the products that the worker has credit on it will mean more products are being "purchased" using this credit system rather than being saved and stored away or lost etc. They aren't getting it for free after all.

I guarantee you, the stock being given to these employees won't "purchased" it'll be given at cost price so will incur less VAT. Also these employees will be paying no tax, USC or PRSI, these will all have knock on effects to tax intake.

bogwalrus wrote: »

I don't want to push anything. I just like attempting to be creative with solutions when things are truly economically tough. Maybe it wont work but maybe just maybe there is something in it that can be drawn out and might actually solve some employment issues. That's why I posted it to hammer it out to see where it might go. Not to push it but I can see it has made you mad for some reason.

Like I said, forget about the services industry, it's manufacturing that we need to resolve, employ more people in manufacturing, or industries that add value to the economy, these will then have a knock on demand in shops, pubs and restaurants, without the need to give people on social welfare advantages.

Also the government don't really care how many people are on the dole, they care about the cost of these people, they couldn't give a toss if we had 1 Million people on social welfare, if it was cheaper than having 100,000 and vice versa, if it was cheaper to have 1 Million people on the dole rather than 100,000 they would prefer to have 1 Million on the dole.

bogwalrus

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

That's assuming all the workers let go can get work, however your calculations are only taking Dole into account what about rent allowance, medical cards and so on.

That is true. But do you not think the state would make a saving if lets say 20K people currently on the dole started working for credit in different shops around Ireland on a reduced welfare payment.

The credit would have to be taxable as if the employee was purchasing the items with cash.

More of my calculations show you now have 20K people that were not working paying tax through the credit they receive for their work.

Cost of keeping 20K on dole per week = 4million

If these 20K get 1/2 dole = 2million

If tax is roughly 10% on their €80 a week credit then that's ten euro each so 10 x 20K = 200K

saving of roughly 2.2million per week on just 20K people.

So now those 20K are costing less on the state while paying a specific amount of tax due to the credit system which benefits both the employer and employee.


The beauty of it is that these workers can work more than one day a week earning the equivalent of €346 (€8.65 for 40 hr week) in credit in different work places if they can get the work.

If they end up paying 10% tax on €346 then that's €34.60 back to the government. if 20k end up paying at least €30 per week on tax then that's 600K per week.


Huge numbers and huge savings.

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

I guarantee you, the stock being given to these employees won't "purchased" it'll be given at cost price so will incur less VAT. Also these employees will be paying no tax, USC or PRSI, these will all have knock on effects to tax intake.

This wont happen as everything would have to go through the books. A store cant just give stock away at cost price. That would be illegal. Even if it is possible lets just assume there is a way to prevent businesses doing this so that "purchases" are taxable.

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Like I said, forget about the services industry, it's manufacturing that we need to resolve, employ more people in manufacturing, or industries that add value to the economy, these will then have a knock on demand in shops, pubs and restaurants, without the need to give people on social welfare advantages.

My whole point is to get people on the social welfare working at a reduced payment and maybe paying some tax. If the service industry can provide some extra work for people on the dole under a new system that is attractive to businesses and workers then it should not be ignored.

Especially when the savings are around 2million per week for just 20K workers.

I agree what you are saying about the manufacturing industry but I have no idea how you can sort that issue out when there really is no manufacturing jobs available. There is potentially work available in service industry though.

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Also the government don't really care how many people are on the dole, they care about the cost of these people, they couldn't give a toss if we had 1 Million people on social welfare, if it was cheaper than having 100,000 and vice versa, if it was cheaper to have 1 Million people on the dole rather than 100,000 they would prefer to have 1 Million on the dole.

I agree. sure my idea would be pointless unless it could save the government a significant amount.

I'm not sure if all my calculations are right and there is probably loads of extra little things that I missed but please don't beat me down for trying to give a go at this. I imagine I am irritating people with my posts but my intentions are good and honest. I could easily be naive but I have run a few businesses and know lots of the daily in's and out's of employing staff etc so I'm not a complete foreigner to the whole employment thing.


Again apologies if i'm irritating people but maybe there is something in what I am saying.