should long term job seekers in receipt of government benefits be made to do voluntary work so that they give something back to the community

In many developed countries there is a provision to provide financial assistance to job seekers. Financial support to job seekers is considered to be an obligation of the governments. Whether long-term job seekers should be made to do voluntary work has been a contentious topic of discussion. In my view, governments should ask for voluntary work by job seekers but with certain precautions.

Some argue that job seekers should not be pressurized to work voluntarily, as this may take away job seeker’s precious time that can be utilized to enhance their skills. However, in my opinion there are several benefits of it. A small proportion of job seekers willingly sit idle as they do not have any sense of responsibility. Making them work voluntarily will instill in them a sense of responsibility towards their nation. For instance, in India, many unemployed people were asked to work voluntarily in infrastructure improvement projects in their villages. This helped Indian government to reduce some of their financial burden and at the same time unemployed people got a sense of responsibility towards society.

To add to the above point mentioned above, voluntary work also benefits the society. After this voluntary work taken by Indian government a research was conducted which indicated that this benefited society as a whole, while job seekers became more responsible, there was also a significant improvement in the attitude of the long term job seekers. They were mentally much more positive in their approach of job seeking. In addition to this, they were also found to have increased their self-respect due to overwhelming thanks gestures given by local people who were benefitted by their voluntary work.

However, there can be many serious consequences of this. Many social researchers argue that making job seekers do voluntary work for government receipts may lead to malpractices. In another revelation made by leading reporter, it was found, that half of the beneficiaries were not actually working for government projects, but were working for some private firms operated by the corrupt government officials. This could lead to serious financial drain of a country’s finances.

To summarize, I would say that making job seekers do voluntary work is a very effective way to utilize unused labour force, but precautions must be taken while implementing such ideas by making system more transparent, accountable and robust.