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Comment by Chathamization | Hacker News Reader

> Also the far-left shared some fake stories (but not totally implausible scenario) under which legalization of prostitution could mean that unemployed women could be forced by unemployment office to accept prostitution jobs or lose their unemployment benefits.

Is this how the system really works in France? If a programmer is unemployed and some manager at McDonald's offers them a job flipping burgers, they have to either take the McDonald's job or they lose their benefits? Do the unemployed really have to accept the first job offer anyone gives them, no matter what?

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You will be proposed job offers from «Pôle Emploi», the unemployment office. The job will be "within your abilities" and in a certain distance from your residence but in practice, Pôle Emploi is known to send pretty much random job offers to people. They have something like 50 categories for job seekers and job offers and make matches automatically.

After two refused job offers, your unemployment benefits will be discontinued.

Programmer and cook are probably in different categories, but there is no way for someone to say "I don't want to work with meat" like the comment I answered to suggested. As a programmer doing robotics, I made the choice to refuse military jobs but I know that in France that's more than 50% of the jobs in the field.

I would not be 100% sure that sex workers would be put in a different categories than "entertainers" making it plausible that an actress would be proposed a job in a porn studio.

Thing is, a member of a porn studio reacted to this scenario: he basically said "we know Pole Emploi does not filter offers at all. Porn acting is very specific, the last thing we want is to force people into it. It would be contrary to our work ethic and probably to the law."

They know they would be blamed for it, so the unlikely part is that they would post such an offer. If they did, however, it is likely that it would be send inappropriately.

Extrapolating from the Netherlands, it isn't an 'accept the job or go to jail'. Instead its an 'accept the job or lose your "unemployment benefit". Here "unempolyment benefit" is a lacking translation. This is basically the last safety net. As there is a freeloader stigma for people receiving these benefits, these requirements are a condition for receiving the benefits.

Doesn't that encourage coercive behavior from employers? It seems like they could lowball an unemployed individual because they know they'll be strongly penalized for not accepting even a bad job offer. The earlier comment also makes it sound like even if you don't apply for a job, someone could offer you a bad one and you'd be forced to either accept it or lose your benefits (which sounds ripe for abuse).

In the US there is a comparable work component. You are allowed to refuse any offer that isn't reasonable or comparable work. Sometimes you have to convince a judge, but there is an appeals process and so it isn't hard to argue that a bad job is beneath you.

Note that the above is about accepting a job. At times you may be required to fill out so many job applications (per week) and you are not allowed to refuse any interview offered. The result is people do apply for bad jobs and get an offer in the interview they have no intention of accepting.

Of course after a few months your benefits run out and then the low ball offer is more appealing as at least it gets you something. However even then a low ball offer isn't as common as you might think. Someone with no place to go will take it, but you cannot stop them from finding a new job next week. Offer someone too low and your risk they collect your money just long enough to become useful and then find a new job. You are paid for your first week of work even though you spend most of it learning and so you cost the company money in training, thus once a company hires you they need to keep you long enough for you to pay off that first week training time.

Note that in the US each state does things differently. The above is a generalization based on what I've seen in different states. The details are different and change.

> At times you may be required to fill out so many job applications (per week)

> and you are not allowed to refuse any interview offered.

We have this in Norway. If one has been unemployed for a while the state run employment agency will often force you to "voluntarily" agree to send 10 employment applications per week and you have to go to any offered interview.

Thus applicants are feared by everyone doing recruiting because no one wants to hire anyone that does not want to be hired. If you do the candidate may be totally unmotivated and even hostile to his new employer. This would be a very bad start for everyone.

In my experience candidates like this will often not show up for a scheduled interview, and if they do they will clearly state that they are there just to satisfy the state employment agency.

Well I imagine it's accept it, or loose your unemployment benefits.

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