Venturing into the land of benefits and unemployment
August 6th, 2010
Well it’s finally happened, what i thought would never happen to me happened last week. I was made redundant. After years of work i am being made redundant from the company i work for. I have never been in this position before as i have been working since coming out of school so i am a bit clueless about the whole benefits game and i stress the word game because after the hassle i’ve had i wonder how many people who need benefits actually give up on trying to claim them because of the nightmare involved in claiming. I went into my local jobcentre after losing my job to try and find out how much unemployment benefits do i qualify for i was sure it would be a lot considering the amount of time i had been working. Unfortunately its not that simple so asking a question like that will not give you a simple answer, just lots of forms. I found it is a lot like having a full time job just trying to decipher and fill in the forms needed to claim the small amount of jobseekers im entitled to. By some miracle I did manage to get my claim submitted in the end and get jobseekers awarded. I often looked at these people who lived on benefits and often wondered how much would i get from unemployment im sure other people have done the same when you see people in the papers and on the news with 6 kids, 2 cars a nice house and living entirely on hand outs! the truth is not a lot! the amount i was getting was not enough to support myself on, i am very lucky though because i only had to attend one meeting and after that my friend had managed to get me a job at his place. I am so grateful because i could not imagine going every other week to sign on, i can honestly say it was one of the most depressing experiences i have ever had!
Entry Filed under: News and Society