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Government's Universal Jobmatch website 'bedevilled with fraud'
Around half of the vacancies on official job search website may be bogus, falsely promoted or against the rules, says Frank Field MP
A third of a million job vacancies advertised on the government's official website for jobseekers are suspected of being bogus, falsely promoted or against the rules, documents seen by the Guardian show.
Frank Field, a Labour MP and former minister, has established that officials are concerned about more than 350,000 vacancies promoted on the Universal Jobmatch site, which must be used by unemployed people to apply for jobs in order to claim benefits. This amounts to around half of the jobs currently being advertised on the flagship website that Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said would "revolutionise" the process of looking for work.
Field started asking questions about the website after discovering that some of his constituents had been scammed out of money by false employers, who asked for bank details upfront and cash for criminal record checks before disappearing.
He believes the whole website is "bedevilled with fraud" and "out of control", and is calling on Duncan Smith to "get a grip" on the contract, which is managed independently by a private recruiter called Monster.
In a letter to Field, the Department for Work and Pensions revealed that more than 352,659 job adverts might be in breach of the Universal Jobmatch website's terms and conditions. These rules specify that employers must advertise the position fairly and comply with the law, including advertising an "actual job or work opportunity", not using premium rate phone numbers, paying at least the minimum wage and not costing the applicant any money to start.
In a letter dated 27 February, DWP officials are contacting the employers promoting these opportunities to "seek evidence of compliance" within the next five days or face the termination of their accounts. The DWP said this "exercise" would take around three weeks.
It comes after an investigation by Channel 4 News estimated last month that more than 11,000 positions currently advertised on the government's Universal Jobmatch website may not actually exist, ranging from vacancies for sous chefs to dry-cleaners. In its early days, the website was ridiculed for advertising joke jobs for MI5 hitmen, mafia couriers and even prostitutes.
Field claims that many jobseekers have been robbed of large sums of money by a sham company that advertised fake jobs and actually conducted bogus interviews inside a jobcentre. He said the victims were informed that their new employer was a nonentity and that they had been ripped off on arrival at what they expected to be their first day of work.
"The heart of the government's welfare reform programme is bedevilled with fraud and, in its current state, it is out of control," he said. "Anyone can place an advertisement on the site in the space of five minutes by ticking a few boxes. Ministers need to get a grip before more people fall victim to fraudsters preying on them with the helping hand of a major government department."
Field has now asked the National Audit Office to investigate the scale of job fraud as a "matter of urgency".
A spokesman for the DWP said: "Universal Jobmatch revolutionises the way jobseekers look for work and it has already helped many jobseekers find the jobs they want through the millions of vacancies posted since 2012.
"The truth is that the vast majority of employers post genuine jobs, and we crack down on those who don't play by the rules. We also regularly monitor the site and remove jobs that don't meet our rules, such as duplicate advertisements or jobs for franchises."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...-website-fraud
Around half of the vacancies on official job search website may be bogus, falsely promoted or against the rules, says Frank Field MP
A third of a million job vacancies advertised on the government's official website for jobseekers are suspected of being bogus, falsely promoted or against the rules, documents seen by the Guardian show.
Frank Field, a Labour MP and former minister, has established that officials are concerned about more than 350,000 vacancies promoted on the Universal Jobmatch site, which must be used by unemployed people to apply for jobs in order to claim benefits. This amounts to around half of the jobs currently being advertised on the flagship website that Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said would "revolutionise" the process of looking for work.
Field started asking questions about the website after discovering that some of his constituents had been scammed out of money by false employers, who asked for bank details upfront and cash for criminal record checks before disappearing.
He believes the whole website is "bedevilled with fraud" and "out of control", and is calling on Duncan Smith to "get a grip" on the contract, which is managed independently by a private recruiter called Monster.
In a letter to Field, the Department for Work and Pensions revealed that more than 352,659 job adverts might be in breach of the Universal Jobmatch website's terms and conditions. These rules specify that employers must advertise the position fairly and comply with the law, including advertising an "actual job or work opportunity", not using premium rate phone numbers, paying at least the minimum wage and not costing the applicant any money to start.
In a letter dated 27 February, DWP officials are contacting the employers promoting these opportunities to "seek evidence of compliance" within the next five days or face the termination of their accounts. The DWP said this "exercise" would take around three weeks.
It comes after an investigation by Channel 4 News estimated last month that more than 11,000 positions currently advertised on the government's Universal Jobmatch website may not actually exist, ranging from vacancies for sous chefs to dry-cleaners. In its early days, the website was ridiculed for advertising joke jobs for MI5 hitmen, mafia couriers and even prostitutes.
Field claims that many jobseekers have been robbed of large sums of money by a sham company that advertised fake jobs and actually conducted bogus interviews inside a jobcentre. He said the victims were informed that their new employer was a nonentity and that they had been ripped off on arrival at what they expected to be their first day of work.
"The heart of the government's welfare reform programme is bedevilled with fraud and, in its current state, it is out of control," he said. "Anyone can place an advertisement on the site in the space of five minutes by ticking a few boxes. Ministers need to get a grip before more people fall victim to fraudsters preying on them with the helping hand of a major government department."
Field has now asked the National Audit Office to investigate the scale of job fraud as a "matter of urgency".
A spokesman for the DWP said: "Universal Jobmatch revolutionises the way jobseekers look for work and it has already helped many jobseekers find the jobs they want through the millions of vacancies posted since 2012.
"The truth is that the vast majority of employers post genuine jobs, and we crack down on those who don't play by the rules. We also regularly monitor the site and remove jobs that don't meet our rules, such as duplicate advertisements or jobs for franchises."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...-website-fraud
