Unemployment is increasing due to our old enemy the credit crunch but where are these keen job hungry people we keep hearing about on the news? writes blogger Charlie Cashdan.

I advertised a position last week for a part-time secretary because I really need some admin assistance at my office.  Nice little job, good pay and reasonable hours in a busy and fun office.

I had loads of folk call up to inquire and after sifting through all the “You got a job goin’ init?” and all the people who clearly didn’t understand the part in the ad where it asks for experience “Nah, I never done no admin before init”, and the people who didn’t call themselves but got some bod from the Job Centre to do it for them, I finally shortlisted nine people who I invited in for an interview.

Out of nine people, only three actually turned up!

None of six no-shows even bothered to call me and explain why they had wasted my time and none of them answered their mobiles when I called to see where they were. They didn’t even return my messages.

They were exactly the sort of people the Government wants us to consider for work at this time, stay home moms who now need extra income to support their husbands and those who have been made redundant.  But only three out of nine bothered to even come in for the interview!

Of the three that came in, two were possible but one had lots of very visible tattoos – call me old fashioned and a snobby old bore but it did put me off!

It really shouldn’t be this hard to find staff in the current economic climate.  Is it just that our benefit system offers no incentive for people to work?  My ex-secretary now earns more in benefits that we paid her and has therefore decided that the working life is not for her.  She kept phoning me all summer saying she was sunbathing in the garden listening to her IPod and sipping white wine waiting for her friends (who all don’t work) to join her for lunch!

As that chav-like young girl on the recent John Prescott documentary about class retorted when Prezza described her as working class “How can I be working class when I don’t work?”

Work seems to have become a last resort for many people rather than an aspiration.