Having the right attitude will help in a hunt for jobs

But I was in complete agreement with him last week when he told a Scrutiny panel that some unemployed Islanders aren’t hungry for work

compared with eastern European immigrants.

I would also like to praise him for having the guts to say something that so many others have thought but dared not voice.

And it isn’t right that this issue should be controversial, because it’s not. No, it is a simple fact that some – note the ‘some’ there – Islanders aren’t prepared to do certain jobs.

For some it is because they believe the jobs to be beneath them; for others it is because it is not what they want to do or have trained to do.

And this isn’t just my personal opinion, because there is evidence of it. For example, at the recent jobs fair a number of out-of-work Islanders were interviewed by media organisations. At least two of them (both young people, I should add) had been out of work for many months, one more than a year, yet still they said things like ‘There just aren’t any proper jobs around’, ‘I don’t want to work in a kitchen’, and ‘I don’t want to be a waitress’.

I am lucky enough never to have been in that position, and some will find what I am about to say a tad blinkered. But, I am going to say it anyway: that way of thinking, whereby people would rather be out of work for a year than work in a kitchen, is disgusting. Yes, I know it is easy for me to say ‘Go out and get a job – any job’, but the way I see it, it really is as simple as trying to do just that.

There are jobs out there and someone who can and needs to work should try their hardest to get one, whatever it is. They don’t have to do it for ever, they can keep looking for other jobs, and they also need to remember that those who start at the bottom can always work their way up.

And for unemployed Islanders who can’t get a job straight away (because not everyone will), they should do something else worthwhile like helping out a charity, for example, while at the same time looking for a job.

After all, when that perfect position does come up in a year’s time or whenever and they sit in that interview and are asked what they have been doing in the year since they last worked, how will it look if they simply say: ‘I’ve been waiting for the right job to come along’?

For some, they haven’t been waiting, they have been procrastinating, relying on the States to support them, and doing nothing to improve themselves. And those certainly aren’t employable qualities.

ALSO blood-boiling is the fact that so many people chose to use this newspaper’s website to attack Mr Warr following his comments. It is one thing to attack someone’s views, but it’s quite another to propose boycotting his business or having a go at him personally just because he told it like it is.

Such comments smack of denial and merely encourage others that it is OK to hide behind the excuses of a lack of jobs or too many eastern European immigrants.

Of course, my comments – which I know some will criticise – do not apply to everyone. And it also works both ways.

Some employers, for example, don’t give Islanders enough of a chance and would prefer the safe option of a well-presented immigrant who is happy to be working in a hotel, for example, compared with a spotty teenager who is just biding his time.

Take, by way of example, the case of a friend of mine who returned from many months travelling and was trying to find a job in Jersey, where she was born. She applied for everything, including stacking shelves in a local supermarket. The shop in question liked her but didn’t give her the job because they knew she would find something better and so wouldn’t stay around for long.

And that is fair enough, because she wouldn’t have.

But the one that really missed a trick was a well-known upmarket hotel that had a receptionist job available. She applied, gave details of her degree, relevant experience and personal qualities which would have made her perfect for the job, but she didn’t even get an interview.

Now, the friend in question really would have been an asset to this hotel. And with aspirations of working in marketing or similar, she would have been well suited to being placed on a programme of development which could have served both her and her employer very well in the future.

But they didn’t even consider her for a second – a decision which is as telling as it was stupid.

Yes, times are tough at the moment, unemployment is spiralling and options are increasingly limited. But there are jobs out there and our politicians are working extremely hard to make sure that there are more.

However, the States can only do so much. Employers also have their part to play by behaving responsibly – something that will be made easier by the Council of Minister’s promise to limit the number of licences for immigrant workers – and by working with the government to maximise opportunities.

But we seem to have forgotten the most important piece of the jigsaw: the individual. Islanders have to be prepared, be willing, persevere, and crucially, be hungry for work.

Yes, the States can help people to achieve that by incentivising them, making work pay rather than benefits.

But ultimately we are in charge of our own futures. And if the man on the street keeps forgetting this, as is the current trend, everyone – the government, businesses and the Island in general – is fighting a losing battle against unemployment.