An unemployed Briton who resorted to standing at a busy motorway junction advertising for work on a sandwich board has secured a job.
Engineer Jason Fruen, 39, took the drastic action after being made redundant five months ago.
Every day from 5.30am, the father-of-one had been standing for four hours at Junction 9 of the M60 by the huge Trafford Park industrial estate in Manchester, wearing a hoarding advertising his quest.
After his plight was publicised, Mr Fruen received a call inviting him to attend an interview with a firm in Trafford Park. And now his desperate attempts have paid off.
Fast track: Jason Fruen advertises his skills on a sandwich board beside the M60
'I've actually had a company offer me a position. I've had to have an interview and they've offered me a position,' Mr Fruen told BBC Radio 5 Live.
After losing his job as a maintenance engineer last September, he spent just one day there with his sandwich board before he was given a temporary job by the boss of a local company.
‘The guy told me frankly that he didn’t actually have a vacant position but that anyone prepared to do what I was doing deserved a chance,’ said Mr Fruen.
‘He was good enough to give me two and a half months work but last week he said he’d have to let me go.’
So, with a seven-year-old daughter, Cleo, who lives with her mother, and a £627-a-month mortgage to pay on his three-bedroom semi in nearby Little Hulton, he picked up his sandwich board again.
Bad old days: A jobseeker adopts the same strategy in New York during the Great Depression
'In September I was made redundant and I got some seasonal work, a company in Manchester... They give me some work to get me through the Christmas period. That finished on last Friday.
'I got that job using this board and I've used it again.'
Mr Fruen will finalise the terms and conditions of his new job on Monday.
'I think we're going to see a lot more people adopting this way of looking for work,' he said.
'I've still got a mortgage to pay, that's why I was out there doing it. I've still got the cost of living and my bills to pay and I needed a job to do it.'
Mr Fruen's reminder of today's recession had echoes of the Great Depression of the 1930s.
His unashamed stunt is similar to the pre-war unemployed who desperately walked the streets of American cities with signs around their necks appealing for work.
Mr Fruen said the weekly visit to the JobCentre would be nowhere near enough to get himself back into work.
Fast approaching the age of 40, he decided that more drastic action was needed – that he would have to hit the road.
‘People have told me what I’m doing goes back to the 1930s but I hadn’t realised,’ he said. ‘My idea was just to advertise myself to as many people as possible. It’s one
of those needs must things.
‘There are jobs out there but the problem is there’s 50 or 60 people going for each one.’
Often seen waving back to motorists who sound their horns in support, Mr Fruen said yesterday: ‘I’m full of beans every morning and there are little things that keep you going.
‘People toot their horns and give me thumbs up signs and someone came over this morning and gave me a pot of tea and a sandwich.’
He added: ‘I’ve never been one to sign on. It’s just a discipline that I’ve got. And anyway Jobseeker’s Allowance of £60 or £70 a week is no good when you’ve got a mortgage.’
Mr Fruen's attitude has struck a chord with British Chambers of Commerce spokesman Sam Turvey.
He said yesterday: ‘British businesses and workers are having to show a real fighting spirit during this recession.’
Mr Fruen left school at 16 and went to work for a recycling firm where he was given one day off a week and studied for a City & Guilds in engineering.
He has subsequently worked for various firms and had a spell self-employed. Over the past seven years he has maintained high-speed packing machinery, earning more than £20,000 a year.
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