However, the future of the ES, part of our welfare state, is under threat. Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, has stated that, if it fails to reach targets this year, the ES has no right to exit at all. In Hackney, Blair has given his old friend, who owns the Reed Employment Agency, the first bite of the cherry with New Deal, an is pleased with the results. Comparatively, Reed is getting more claimants into work. What the statistics really illustrate is that the convenient filling of employers vacancies by 'available' unemployed is not the Jobcentre's only goal or role.
Private agencies implement a basic labour exchange and there is a difference.
Reed as an employment agency operates at the crudest level - its only reason to exist is to make profit. To get a living wage, they must rapidly fill vacancies. It cannot be said that the ES's aims and ideological functions are perfect - far from it. But claimants, with personal work requirements and aspirations, will be treated still less as individuals by the private sector. For Reed workers this is literally a luxury they cannot afford.