Dominic Raab wants firms who are short of workers to hire PRISONERS to plug the gaps 

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Prisoners should be hired by companies which are suffering from severe staff shortages, the new Justice Secretary has suggested.

Dominic Raab said that some of the record one million job vacancies across the UK could be filled by offenders who are allowed out on day release or have just finished their jail sentences.

He claimed that the radical move could help society as well as the economy – and aid the new employees in turning their backs on a life of crime.

Officials are set to contact firms desperate for fruit-pickers or food factory workers to convince them to hire more offenders.

It comes as the Government’s furlough ends today after 19 months. Latest figures from July showed 1.6million jobs still being propped up by the scheme, which has been running since March last year. 

From tomorrow, pandemic support measures including furlough and the extra £20-a-week in Universal Credit for struggling households, will end. 

UK job advert numbers have reached the highest figure in at least a year, with almost two million positions currently being offered, newly released figures have revealed.

Job market data from September 13 to September 19 shows more than 220,000 new job adverts were posted, bringing the total number of active job adverts to 1.9million. 

According to the figures, there were 36,000 new adverts appeared for chefs, around 32,000 for sales assistants and 6,500 for bar staff in that period.

The figures for hospitality jobs are likely to reflect the country opening back up in the wake of Covid-19 rules being lifted.

But the job advert figures also show more than 7,500 job adverts have been posted for HGV drivers in the UK in the last week. Some offer salaries upward of £50,000-a-year. 

The flurry of job adverts comes amid a shortage of lorry drivers across the UK.

The Road Haulage Association estimate the UK to be short of 100,000 HGV drivers.

Brexit and Covid are among the major reasons put forward by transport groups and ministers for the shortage, which has sparked chaos for the UK’s transport industry. 

As well as the end of furlough, Mr Raab, who lost his job as Foreign Secretary earlier this month after going on holiday as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, believes prisoners could plug the shortages gap. 

He told The Spectator: ‘We’ve been getting prisoners and offenders to do volunteering and unpaid work.

‘Why not – if there are shortages –encourage them to do paid work where there’s a benefit for the economy, benefit for society?’ He went on: ‘If you give people skin in the game, give them something to lose, if you give them some hope, they’re much less likely to reoffend.’ Mr Raab also said he backed the idea of asylum-seekers being allowed to work while their claims were being processed.

Latest figures show that more than 33,000 would-be refugees waited more than a year to find out if they could stay in the UK, but current laws ban them from taking paid work during that time.

Asked if they should be allowed to have jobs – which would be a matter for the Home Office rather than the Ministry of Justice – Mr Raab replied: ‘I would be open-minded about it.’ Mr Raab is the son of a Czech refugee and his wife is from Brazil, but he said that the ‘big challenge with migration’ is that in Britain ‘we just don’t integrate people well enough’.

‘If they learn the language and they can work, they integrate much better and they make a positive contribution,’ he claimed. However he rejected Labour’s call to give 100,000 migrants visas to help solve the acute shortage of lorry drivers. ‘It leaves us reliant in the long term on the predicament of cheap labour coming in from abroad.

‘What that will do is depress wages for aspirational working class people in this country.’

He said that to solve the labour shortage, Britain needed to look at the ‘quality of life’ and ‘wage levels’ of the people who we rely on.

‘If not, you’re just doubling down on cheap labour from abroad.’ His comments come as companies continue to struggle to find enough staff.

The Office for National Statistics recently revealed job vacancies had risen above one million for the first time in the three months to August.

The biggest gaps are in hotels, pubs and restaurants, formerly filled by young Europeans who have returned home either as a result of Brexit or lockdown.

There is also an unprecedented staffing crisis in elderly care caused by the pandemic, low wages and tougher immigration rules.

Panic-buying of petrol and empty supermarket shelves have become common in recent weeks as a result of a lack of HGV and fuel tanker drivers, prompting the Government to introduce 5,000 temporary visas in the run-up to Christmas.

Because of the training requirements and a backlog of licence applications, it is unlikely any prisoners out on day release would be able to become lorry drivers.

Offenders are more likely to be hired to carry out jobs that require basic skills and so can be taken on immediately, such as picking fruit and vegetables or packing boxes.

Furlough ends for 1.6MILLION workers TODAY: Wave of redundancies expected as payments come to an end 

The Government’s furlough scheme is set to end today after 19 months.   

Latest figures from July showed 1.6million jobs still being propped up by the scheme, which has been running since March last year. 

From tomorrow, pandemic support measures including furlough and the extra £20-a-week in Universal Credit for struggling households, will end. 

The furlough programme, which at its peak paid a third of employees to stay at home, cost more than £68billion – the most expensive single piece of UK economic support during the pandemic. 

Numbers had dipped by 340,000 by the end of July – the first month that employers had to pay 10 per cent of the salaries of their furloughed workers. 

Earlier this month, experts warned that only a ‘trickle’ of staff were being taken off furlough and a million could still be reliant on the bailout when it comes to an end.

HM Revenue & Customs figures showed 121,600 people between the ages of 18 and 34 were taken off the furlough scheme in June and July.   

Furlough launched in the early days of the pandemic as a way of ensuring that people could keep their jobs, and a portion of their income, even when the economy closed down.

For those who were unable to work from home, the scheme would pay them up to 80 per cent of their salaries.

However from the beginning of July employers had to contribute 10 per cent of their furloughed employees’ salaries. This went up again to 20 per cent for August and September. 

Since launching 18 months ago, close to 12million jobs have been furloughed. The Government has paid a total of £68.5billion to furloughed employees.

Furlough levels remained the higher in London on July 31 than in other parts of the country, especially for men.

Eight London areas were among those with the highest furlough rates, at 9 per cent to 10 per cent.

Concerns are now being raised about the number of workers over the age of 50 who are still furloughed.

More than 540,000 people in the age group were on furlough at the end of July, accounting for 35 per cent of the total, according to research.

Rest Less, which offers help and advice for older people, said the pandemic had ‘devastated’ the job market for older workers over the past two years.

Founder Stuart Lewis said the full impact might still to be felt, adding: ‘With more than half a million people aged 50 or older still on furlough at the last count, we may well see hundreds of thousands of hardworking, experienced older workers enter redundancy and, ultimately, find themselves looking for a new job in the run-up to Christmas.

‘The jobs market is polarised at the moment. On the one hand, we have record job vacancies and companies struggling to hire talent in key areas, for example HGV drivers and healthcare.

‘On the other side, unemployment levels across many age groups have yet to recover and we are seeing huge falls in economic activity amongst midlifers.

‘Much more can be done to help bridge these gaps through intensive retraining and accelerated assessment programmes.’

Rest Less said its research suggested long-term trends of employment growth among the over-50s has been reversed over the past two years.

Stuart Lewis added: ‘The loss of any large proportion of society from the workforce is cause for significant concern and risks holding back the economic recovery for all.

‘Whilst for some workers aged 50 and older economic inactivity is a choice and a planned exit from the workforce, many others are finding themselves faced with an early retirement they are neither financially or emotionally prepared for.’

A Government spokesperson said: ‘Our £400 billion Plan for Jobs is working – nearly two million fewer people are now expected to be out of work than was previously feared.

‘Furlough was the right thing to do to protect almost 12 million jobs when Covid was at its peak but now restrictions have eased, people are returning to work and the scheme is naturally winding down, with 194,000 more people aged 50-64 on payrolls compared to a year ago.

‘We’re doubling down on our plan as the economy rebounds – refocusing our support on giving people of all ages the skills and opportunities they need to get back into work, progress and earn more, including older workers through our 50 Plus: Choices offer.’

Emily Andrews, of the Centre for Ageing Better, said: ‘Throughout the pandemic, over-50s have been hit hard by redundancies, and it’s likely that the end of the furlough scheme will be no exception.

‘Job losses for this group are particularly worrying, as we know that they are more likely to struggle to get back into work. In the past, back-to-work support simply hasn’t worked for the over-50s.

‘That means we now need to see an intensive programme of support for older workers to get back into work, including support to retrain and reskill.’