Job loss trend becomes clearer

The number of people claiming Job Seekers Allowance in Hackney rose by 40 in October, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics published yesterday. It's not a big rise but, as the chart below shows (click on it to expand) while the size of the moves up and down may be calming down, there appears to be a solid upward trend.

In terms of actual numbers, there are now 11,243 JSA claimants, the majority in Hackney South.
In the meantime, as the number of unemployed increases, the level of staffing in Hackney Jobcentre Plus is falling.

Hackney Jobcentre cuts staff as unemployment peaks

Blood and Property has been told that a number of members of staff at the Mare Street Jobcentre Plus in Hackney Central have not have their contracts renewed. That's as the number of Job Seekers Allowance claimants using Hackney job centres hits record highs.

Back in 2009 Derek Harvey, external relations manager for Job Centre Plus and a member of Team Hackney told Blood and Property that JCP was “gearing up to handle greater volumes” of JSA claimants.

In those days the combined number of Job Seekers Allowance claimants in Hackney North and South was 9,350 (May 2009) falling to 9,308 (June 2009).

The forecast was correct - the count in September 2011 was 11,208 - a rise of more than 20% since the new recruits were taken on.

But now the volumes are here, it looks like JCP is gearing down.

A DWP spokesperson told Blood and Property: "Jobcentre Plus recruited a large number of people on temporary contracts to deal with the recession. As the Government looks to grow the economy and reduce the deficit JCP is now reducing its overall staffing, this year through a combination of normal turnover and releasing some of the people who were recruited on Fixed Term Appointments (FTAs) as their contracts come to an end. Its priority is to ensure support for people in Hackney is maintained."


This post is going up before the ONS releases the latest unemployment figures for the UK which will show whether or not the number of people claiming Job Seekers Allowance has risen again Hackney.

If it has then Hackney will be maintaining its highest level of JSA claimants since the Financial Crisis

Tension over Charedi sexual harassment claims

A claim that Charedi men "are notorious harassers of the opposite sex" has raised the stakes in a long-running stand off between Professor Geoffrey Alderman and Rabbi Abraham Pinter.

The two men often provide polar opposite arguments about Hackney's Charedi community.

Alderman's run-ins with the 'ultra orthodox Jewish' community have taken in a range of topics from schooling and statistics to "selfishness". Pinter has usually provided the rebuttal.

However tensions were raised to a higher level last week after Alderman wrote a piece in the Jewish Chronicle which said: "It is, however, well known that charedi men are notorious harassers of the opposite sex."

His comments appear to have prompted an organised campaign against him and the newspaper.

Rabbi Pinter told Blood and Property: "Alderman makes an appalling statement of collective libel. In his emails to you he clearly recognizes that he has made an error and should have chosen his words more carefully. However, it is unacceptable for him to try to get out of his problem in private emails to you. He must apologise for the collective libel and then I will be happy to respond."

The article was first discussed by fellow Hackney blogger, If you tickle us, and comments under the post included a pre-written letter to the Press Complaints Commission which the anonymous author hopes will be sent en masse by enraged Charedim. It describes Alderman's views as "unfounded, defamatory and discriminatory".

The same comment also provided an anonymised pre-written letter for the attention of the Jewish Chronicle calling for Alderman's "suspension as (a) writer for the JC pending the results a full investigation" due to his "continuously hateful conduct towards Charedi Jewry as a whole."

Blood and Property asked Alderman if his comments were meant to single out Charedi men as worse harassers of women than other communities or human beings in general.

He said: "That is not what I was saying. I don't know if there is necessarily a higher instance of harassment of women in Charedi communities than in the general population, I don't have statistics to show that, but that's not the point I was making.

"What I was saying is that they - the Charedim - set themselves very high standards which, I'm very sorry to say, they do not reach. They say they are closer to God than any other jewish group and yet this sort of thing still goes on."

Blood and Property asked if it was reasonable to expect any one community to behave better than another one and criticise them if they didn't. Alderman said: "It is they, - the Charedim - who set the standard they seem incapable of reaching. It is obvious to me that growing up in that sort of community does not make you any better than any other person. Do me a favour: ring up Rabbi Pinter (Avrohom Pinter) and ask him why this is so."

Ask him: "Does growing up in your community make you any better - as a Jew - than me? "

As stated above, Pinter told Blood and Property: "Alderman makes an appalling statement of collective libel. In his emails to you he clearly recognizes that he has made an error and should have chosen his words more carefully. However, it is unacceptable for him to try to get out of his problem in private emails to you. He must apologize for the collective libel and then I will be happy to respond."

Alderman said he didn't have a problem with the formal treatment of women in the Charedi community saying that the women were often the bread winners. He added that when he got married in the Lea Bridge Road synagogue in Clapton in 1973 a number of his wife's relatives, Chardim from Stamford Hill - came to the wedding and they themselves offered a neat loophole to the gender segregation problem - by asking that each family sit as a group at each table.

Alderman also pointed out that the content of his column was discussed, edited and approved by the newspaper before publication so any division between himself and the newspaper over the piece was unlikely.