part time work on jobseekers benefit x's and o's

pixieprinny

Hi All,

Sorry if this is a bit long winded but I am so confused. I was working a 20hour week (10hours per day), but got left go back in Feb. Got my job seekers benefit approved, so am getting €188 per week at present.

My ex-boss contacted me during the week, offering me a few hours a week. Nothing set in stone. Said it could be 1 hour one day and 8 hours another day and then nothing the following week.

So was considering it, (just to have something to do and not to go stir crazy) and went to discuss it with my SWO. So they told me because I was only working 2 days, if took up the work over 2days, I would loose all JSB money. (If I worked one day I would only get 1 day JSB) He told me I can attempt to switch onto JSA and then maybe get x's and o's. He said he'd leave it with me to decide whether to take the job, switch to job seekers allowance or just stay on my stamps on JSB and leave the job go.

But if I refuse the job, I can get cut off the dole. However i don't want to give up €188. And end up getting only 9hours max per week if I was lucky on min wage its only €78. Somehow I just don't see why I can't get do x's and o's on the days I'm not working.

Has anyone had the same problem or something similar?

Or has anyone switched from benefit to allowance before their stamps ran out??

It's such a joke, I'm being honest and not working and signing and getting screwed.

sligoface

hiya,

i don't see how it is worth it for you to go back to work at the hours being offered. even if they put you on jsa, they will deduct a certain amount for each day you work. in my case, it was 37 euro. yours may vary slightly with the new rules but still, if you are on min wage you will need to work a decent shift, not just one or two hours, otherwise you will be working to lose money.

i was in a similar situation when i finished college, i had been working part time casual. they but me on jsb. because i had been working only one day a week, they told me if i even worked even one day that didnt count as a loss of employment and i would lose the pay for the whole week! so i couldnt work at all!

i told this to my boss, said basically, unless you are putting me on for four days a week i can't work at all. they couldn't give me four days, so ihad no work for about 2 months, then the dole office sent me a letter saying since i wasn't working anymore, i had to go off the casual jsb and just onto the normal dole. i went in and told them why i had no work. and they went, 'oh well, we can put u on jsa' and then i went back to being able to work a few days and they just deducted a certain amount for each day worked. why they didnt do that in the first place is beyond me. sometimes it depends who you talk to, some aren't fully trained methinks.

but this still screwed me because in the meantime my work had hired someone new (at a lower pay rate due to the min wage being lowered that year) and i barely got any hours, only on days when it was very busy, and even then, was first sent home when it got quiet as i was making the monumentous wage of 9.66 per hour.

if you are getting the full dole now, why go back to somewhere that you know will never become full time and will only lead to more paperwork at the dole office? i know some work is better than none but not in this case. you are still meant to seek full time work when on part time jsa or jsb anyway. you're only making more hassle for yourself really, and for one to eight hours a week at min wage, for a place that let you go? screw that, imo. sometimes you need to just let an old job go to make room for a new one. good luck!

smallgarden

i used to work part time and sporadically on the dole. i filled out yellow slips each week saying which days i worked. if i didn't work i got my full weeks dole. if i did work i got those days deducted.the amount varies i think per person. the key was to work as many hours in one day rather than lots of days as even if you worked 1 hour in a day the day was deducted. if you went over so many days you got nothing from the dole,i cant remember how many days it was,maybe 4 or 5.it worked out pretty well

Chloris

I work an eight hour week at €15 per hour, making me €120 per week. I can barely live on that much money. Am I entitled to Jobseekers Benefit? I'm trying to find work doing substitute teaching (and I get paid under the table for a summer camp I work at and for babysitting and gigs I do) but I'm really struggling to get by.

Also, I'm moved out of my parents' home but I'm not on a lease/contract in the flat I live in. Would I be entitled to any rent allowance?

Things are very hard right now. I wish I could have finished my education five years earlier so at least I'd have a job when I left college and get some experience. I feel like in a few years, I'm going to be homeless and starve to death.

upinthesky

hope your soreted now

constantina

hi, How many hours i can work if i have Jobseeker's Allowance?thank you very much