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A comment on The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items an hour. Parent comment

Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by zaroth on Saturday January 20, 2018 @12:56PM (#16194415)
He needs to keep working there just until he finds something better. If his Amazon shift is the best he can find, I’m glad it’s available to him. With no job opportunity he would also lose his government benefits.

Amazon is providing a huge service to offer jobs with such a low entry requirement. The alternative is not a better job — as he says, there isn’t one or he would leave and take it in a millisecond. The options are Amazon job and government benefits or no job and no benefits.

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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by corin_ on Saturday January 20, 2018 @01:14PM (#16194512)
He couldn’t get unemployment benefits if he chooses to leave a job, but if this job didn’t exist then he could, so it’s very misleading to suggest that if Amazon hadn’t provided this job he would have “no job and no benefits”.

(I do think that the unemployment benefits system is shitty here in the UK, I certainly wouldn’t enjoy having to rely on it, but that’s a separate topic.)

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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by walshemj on Saturday January 20, 2018 @02:51PM (#16195072)
For single people its 73.10 under 24 its 57.9 and only lasts 6 months.

Also as statutory benefits are based on full years you could end up at retirement age not getting a full pension - this is the main reason why well paid people also sign on to make sure they don't miss out when older.

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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by tonyedgecombe on Saturday January 20, 2018 @03:44PM (#16195316)
You can get NI credits if you are claiming benefits because you are unemployed or ill.
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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by walshemj on Saturday January 20, 2018 @05:13PM (#16195702)
Yes that was my point you have to sign on to do that and spend 35hous a week on your job search and you have to have enough contributions which is a bummer if your employer goes bust owning NI contributions.
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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by andrepd on Saturday January 20, 2018 @01:04PM (#16194461)
What an appalling reasoning.

You realize you could replace 'worker' with 'serf' and 'Amazon' with 'feudal lord' in that post and it would be a shining defence of feudalism?

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Re:The Amazon worker: paid £18,000 a year to shift 250 items... by terminal_city on Saturday January 20, 2018 @02:14PM (#16194883)
Nonsense. The kid works 4 days a week for good pay for the jobs performed. He admits to banking 650 a month, with only 250 in non-work related expenses. He works three months, he can quit, and have enough cash on hand to support at least 6 months of job search... and then the dole will kick in.

The catch? He actually has to want to do it.

How is this like serfdom?

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