There has been increasingly more debates on the treatment of long-term job seekers recently and some center around whether they should be required to do voluntary work so that they can give something back to the community. It is a controversial topic as some believes that government benefits are part of the social welfare for these job seekers and their labor should not be asked for in return. However, requirements for voluntary works are generally good for these long-term job seekers in several different aspects.
Social studies have shown that long-term job seekers tend to have more possibilty of depression and anxietly compared to working inviduals as they constantly suffer from lack of motivations and fulfillness. Without a job, they also lose the opportunities to connect with other people and feel as part of the society. Requiring job seekers to spend time on voluntary work may sound demanding at first, but slowly they will regain happiness and sense of accomplishments through helping other people in the community. Moreover, these people will feel more dignified and have a sense of doing actual work in exchange of benefits instead of taking the financial support from government for granted, which an important factor that contributes to the building of self-esteem and confidence.
Another advantage of mandatory voluntary work worth noting is that it can reduce the number of unemployed people in some sense. The process of completing tasks and the cooperation between different people during voluntray work are great ways to enable the job seekers to more deeply explore their strength, encouraging them to find new career development areas that they have not took into consideration before, and eventually helping them out of the unemployment.
Admittedly, it is tricky to maintain the balance between motivating long-term job seekers and giving them their community rights, but it is vital for us to look for the root of unemployment and find related solutions, and mandatry voluntary work may be one of these solutions.