THOUSANDS of work programme guru jobs are set to go in a huge Government shake-up of the welfare-to-work sector in what some call an unemployment “bloodbath”.

Few will shed a tear for the thousands of job gurus employed by private agencies and gravy train slurpers.

It was under Tony Blair’s New Labour that the welfare privatisation merry-go-round began in 2001.

Since then, Labour and the Tories have wasted an estimated £20bn on useless Mickey Mouse programmes.

Foreign companies mopped up the money with little regard to the unemployed who had to endure these humiliating schemes.

In 2011, one boss awarded herself a £8.6m dividend on top of her £365,000 a year salary.

Little wonder there was no money left for any quality training or paid work experience.

Most of the job gurus were not professionals. They were ex-call centre workers or people who had worked in sales. They simply used their transferable skills from selling commodities to selling people (onto unpaid work schemes).

Now it’s come full circle and it’s the job gurus who find themselves on the receiving end.

They’ve no need to worry, though. Job gurus have spent the last decade informing the unemployed there are jobs-a-plenty.

So with all their worldly experience they should have no trouble finding a new one.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.