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The latest news on unemployment, employment, benefits and the economy. Find out who’s hiring, who’s firing, changes to benefits, the unemployment rate and everything that’s new in our world.
The Labour party's plan to guarantee a job for every young person who had been unemployed for more than a year has come under attack - by the Institute of Directors.
The IoD represents some of the wealthiest people in the UK, and they will have pension allowances cut to pay for part of the scheme.
The rest of the money will come from a levy on bankers' bonuses.
The Labour party has announced a plan to tax bankers' bonuses to pay for a job guarantee for young unemployed people.
The party wants to have its cake and eat it though; a job would be provided to all under-25s who had been unemployed for more than a year, but the would lose benefits if they turned it down.
The language of 'guarantees' versus ' compulsory' mean it is not clear whether Miliband and Balls are pro- or anti-unemployed.
The government's flagship universal jobmatch site has been accused of exploiting and failing unemployed people by a respected MP.
Those on Jobseeker's Allowance are forced to sign up and use the site, which carries information on jobs, as a condition of receiving the benefit.
But an investigation by Frank Field, the veteran Labour MP, has shown that more than half of all the jobs advertised on it do not meet its conditions or the law.
More than 5,000 training courses are to lose funding as the government cuts the money it provides.
These courses are of "low value" according to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and do not warrant public support.
Those cut include balloon artistry, self-tanning and instructing pole fitness - the 'art' of pole dancing for health.
Skills minister Matthew Hancock said the aim was to make the courses focused more on the needs of employers, as well as ensuring there was a more reliable route into work:
The government has apologised for a letter sent to a woman in a coma telling her to attend "intensive job-focused activity".
The letter, written by Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), was received by the family of Sheila Holt.
Ms Holt had been suffering from physical and mental health problems and had fallen into a coma in December, her family informing the DWP and SEETEC, the organisation providing job-focused activity, at that time.
Real earnings have fallen by 8% since the start of the recession in 2008 according to an influential survey of pay and work.
This shock finding was revealed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today, helping to show why unemployed people often cannot afford to take the jobs they are offered.
It also shows why those in work can resent unemployed people - they have been getting poorer for so long that the idea of a benefit cap set at the level of average earnings appears to be fair.
Welcome to this week's jobs board, the place to come for your new work opportunity.
It is still tough to get work in many areas of the country, so we hope this information can help.
The board includes opportunities at all levels and across the country, in sectors including engineering, broadcasting and IT, so click on the links to find out more.
The pick of this week's board includes:
The government's benefit cuts are so damaging to the wellbeing of claimants that the national lottery is funding support for those who suffer mental health problems as a result.
The Big Lottery Fund will support Oxfordshire MIND to provide its Benefits for Better Mental Health (BBMH) project, which has been helping people access benefits since 2008.
The £336,000 grant has been given to help the organisation deal with a big increase in workload since the coalition started its war on benefit claimants.
Tory MP Peter Bone has been accused of benefit fraud in a report in The Times newspaper.
The MP for Wellingborough and Rushden was alleged to have hidden assets belonging to his mother-in-law, Dorothy Sweeney, so her local authority, Northamptonshire County Council, would fund her care home costs.
Anyone who has assets of more than £23,250, including property and savings, must pay for their own care.
Police raided Bone's house after a year-long investigation, triggered after they became aware that Sweeney had sold a house shortly before going into a care home.
The Department for Work and Pensions has announced its latest universal credit rollout.
Two new areas will implement the scheme from today - the unemployment hotspots of Bath and Harrogate.
It is only up and running in Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Hammersmith, Inverness and Rugby as the IT system has consistently failed to deliver, with Iain Duncan Smith criticised for his incompetent management of it.
Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud encouraged this foot-dragging rollout, saying:
"We are introducing Universal Credit in a slow, safe and controlled way."