MADAM, In response to the letter in last week's Ross Gazette,'Unemployment trials' – I too have had a negative experience with the Ross job centre. I recently started to look for local part-time employment after spending a few years at home bringing up my children and once my youngest started school, I gained a qualification at BA (Hons) level.

Feeling proud of my achievement, I felt confident that, along with all my previous employment before having children, life experience and current qualifications, I would find a job easily.

One of my first stages of searching was to visit the Ross Job Centre. After standing in their offices for a while trying to work out what the procedure is nowadays, a woman asked me what I wanted. I explained that I would like to register for part-time local work.

In a very condescending voice, she said 'you don't come to a job centre for a job, you go online to look for a job'. I had to really bite my tongue at this. She told me that I had to look at the DirectGov website, which I had already been doing at home and have not had one response. She did not ask if I had access to the internet, in fact she took no interest in my needs whatsoever.

So 'thank you' my local JOB centre – I am finding it hard enough trying to find a job without people like you putting even more barriers up for me. I'm not on benefits (although the JC woman seemed eager to put me on benefits) so I am not counted in the Government's statistics as being unemployed but I want and need to work. I'm starting to lose count of how many jobs I have applied for and never get a response back.

I will continue to remain positive and will avoid relying on places such as the local job centre to encourage/help me back to work. Maybe the Government need to ask questions about how the JOB centres are failing?

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