A campaign to get employers to pay for candidates’ travel expenses has been launched in support of boosting the UK labour force and improving social mobility.
Debut, the student and graduate careers app, will lobby Government to introduce guidelines for employers to proactively offer travel reimbursement for all ‘in-person’ interviews, to better support the UK’s labour force and improve social mobility.
The campaign is in response to research which revealed that the average cost of attending an in-person interview is £41, equivalent to eight percent of the average family’s weekly household spend.
The research has revealed that graduates entering the job market attend an average of six ‘in-person’ interviews amounting to a cost of £246. For those already in employment, over half said they have taken a day of annual leave to attend an interview – worth £117.46 . This, in addition to the cost of travel, is often not achievable on the average monthly budget.
The ‘Getting There’ campaign is underpinned by a petition which will be presented, in addition to the research, to the Department for Work and Pensions. The campaign and petition will urge the Government to outline official recommendations for employers to put a proactive reimbursement plan in place, to support candidates in their search for work. Best practice employers who already offer to reimburse all or a percentage of a candidate’s travel costs include: Siemens, E.ON and Capgemini.
Charlie Taylor, Founder and CEO of Debut comments on the ‘Getting There’ campaign: “As the only mobile app in the UK that is proactively supporting a mobile-first generation with their transition from education into employment, we are very close to the issues that young people face. However, our research quickly revealed that this isn’t a problem faced only by the younger generations. All people of working age are affected by this shortfall, which is having a knock-on effect on the movement of people and the speed at which the labour market moves.
“Because we, at Debut, are modernising the way in which employers recruit, and applicants apply – via mobile – we think our powerful data and our progressive approach puts us in a strong position to identify issues that candidates are facing and lobby for small but important changes that will have a positive effect on each individual, and the UK economy.”
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