Unemployment, and so on

[Kevin]

Did you read the article? Your response seems to indicate you didn't. They have to work for FREE. That my friend, is S-L-A-V-E-R-Y, with a capital S (even if it is for only 2 months, it is still 2 months of slavery). Such propositions always end up in exploitation or are understated anyway.

"...or face having their benefits docked."
"they would be stripped of their £53- a-week jobseekers allowance (JSA)..."

They aren't working for free. They are getting paid by the government 53 pounds a week which right now is about $84 US dollars a week. They work "up to 30 hours a week". So at worst they are getting $2.80 an hour. It looks like minimum wage for the age group the article was talking about translate to about $6.75 an hour. Of course that up to could mean some are only working 10 hours a week and would then be getting ~$8.40 an hour.

I'm not saying there aren't issues. I'm not saying they are underpaid. I'm not saying the policy doesn't need to be fixed.

I am saying that they are being compensated, the compensation is not from the people they are working for, but I have been paid by one company to do work for another company, my hours and work conditions were not dictated by who was paying me, but by who I was doing the work for. So where the the money is coming from is mostly irrelevant.

They get money, it's clearly stated in the article. Since they don't get much money at all they are likely able to get other forms of assistance too. If the experience they get allows them get a job with real pay and they break the contract and lose the government money they probably don't care.

Again despite what I anticipate you are going to read from my post, I'm not defending the practice the article is discussing. I'm pointing out that you are wrong in saying this is slavery.