Britain's young unemployed are being sent to work for supermarkets and budget stores for up to two months for no pay and no guarantee of a job, the Guardian can reveal.
Under the government's work experience programme young jobseekers are exempted from national minimum wage laws for up to eight weeks and are being offered placements in Tesco, Poundland, Argos, Sainsbury's and a multitude of other big name businesses.
The Department for Work and Pensions says that if jobseekers "express an interest" in an offer of work experience they must continue to work without pay, after a one-week cooling-off period, or face having their benefits docked.
I'm not against a well-designed makework program for the unemployed with reasonable compensation. In fact, I wish we had a massive well-designed makework program for the unemployed with reasonable compensation. But this is just giving free labor to companies, and in a way which doesn't leave people with much time to look for real jobs.