UNEMPLOYED SOCIAL WORKER - UNEMPLOYMENT HAS GONE DOWN, HONEST!

(*) Vitor B Munhao

Well, I’m going to believe the statistics like I didn’t know anything about them and not knowing that these same statistics are “ordered” face to the necessities and goals of each government, but everything leads me to understand this time I will actually believe it!!!!

Forgetting or facing away from the seriousness of what’s happening with the Social worker class, hardly talked about for the past few months but which makes itself “fashionable” the same way that Levi’s denim jeans got famous. Even those who see themselves as untouchables are starting to really understand what it is to be part of a new class: the UNEMPLOYED!

Let’s start with a small exercise to make matters clear: if, in Portugal, not all 23 schools of social service are considered, but only 20 teaching units – and I’m talking only of Social Service Licentiate Degrees – at the end of each school year about 40 people graduate, we know it’s a bigger number but let’s leave it at that – this means that, every school year, around 800 social workers graduate in the mainland and islands. If, from this number, 20% (+/- 160) get jobs in the field, we get roughly 640 professionals unemployed. If we take this number and multiply it by the last 5 years, we get, more or less, 3000 unemployed professionals.  Of the 17.000 professionals existing in Portugal, we can assume the unemployment rate is very high: +/- 30%.

I can positively state, with elements of January and February 2017 already in my possession, that +/- 3% (+/-98.4 Social Workers) choose emigration, working in the most diverse areas: restaurants, hotels, car wash services, Care Home or Care Assistant, among others. We still haven’t proved the unemployment rise because the IEFP (Institute of Employment and Professional Training) can’t be bothered or interested in understanding the unemployment rates in this “annoying”, but much desired by other professionals; career, especially in health and solidarity areas.

After figuring out the math, we may be able to get to numbers that will scare most sceptics and demonstrate the increasing lack of employability of the profession, where I would risk a number closer to 6.000 social workers – or many more - in unemployment conditions.

We need to be pragmatic and admit that the unemployment rate is going up in a terrifying way, clearly contradicting information by politicians, with a tendency, in my point of view, to increase the numbers even more, but we’ll always have WORK INTERNSHIPS, an expression cherished by consecutive governments, where it can subtly conceal future unemployed citizens and crush the numbers, even by one semester, even more so when it’s electoral campaign time.

With Brexit or without it, Social Services in England have an unemployment rate very close to ZERO%, why? Because no one does the work, or takes the place of a Social Worker, without having the academic competences to do so. The profession is constantly called up top to organize and implement social policies.

Whether you like the results or not, it is the social worker, by force of his profession, practical and academic knowledge of the field that, in coordination with the management entities, is consulted, studies, implements and evaluates the results.

Why? Because they stood their ground, collectively imposing against “third” professions barging into an area which is full of particularities and a unique sensibility like Social Service. They didn’t allow other professions to take their competences and skills by storm, they didn’t allow their professional dignity to be disrespected nor the main role be taken away from them.

In Portugal, where there are around 5.000 solidarity institutions, the majority of it has not social workers, or that job is done partly through Work Internships, not developing continuous work, while others are paid under contractual wages and also public services, with the exception of the Ministry of Health, who knows for how long, employ “staffers” without any training in the field for totally disgraceful wages.

The Ice Age quickly approaches our working class and surely the political correctness and passivity for which we are known for will not keep us warm enough to help the profession from going extinct! Take a look at all the new courses on Social Service and Community Development and then don’t say I didn’t tell you so, for others will soon follow, for these supposed Social Service Schools – and others -  desire to make money is so great, they would put Uncle Scrooge to shame, so blind  is their greed. In case you still have doubts, take a close look at the contents and work opportunities of the CTSP course I mentioned and weep, you’ll spend many a tissue whipping those tears! 

May the force be with you, SW!

(*) Degree in Social Service / Post-graduate in Social Institution Managing / Consultant / International Health by VIA College University / Social Globalisation by Oxford University / Member of the British Association of Social Workers – nº96671 / Member of Associação dos Profissionais de Serviço Social – nº2651 / Member of the World Council of Enterostemol Therapist / Expert in Ostomy Community