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People taking up work experience places –​ providing up to 30 hours a week of unpaid labour –​ face losing benefits if they quit.

Britain'​s jobless young people are being sent to work for supermarkets and budget stores for up to two months for no pay and no guarantee of a job, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the government'​s work experience programme young jobseekers are exempted from national minimum wage laws for up to eight weeks and are being offered placements in Tesco, Poundland, Argos, Sainsbury'​s and a multitude of other big-name businesses.

TheDWP says that if jobseekers "​express an interest"​ in an offer of work experience they must continue to work without pay, after a one-week cooling-off period or face having their benefits docked.

Young people have told the Guardian that they are doing up to 30 hours a week of unpaid labour and have to be available from 9am to 10pm.

In three such cases jobseekers also claim they were not told about the week'​s cooling-off period, and that once they showed a willingness to take part in the scheme they were told by their case manager they would be stripped of their £​53- a-week jobseekers allowance (JSA) if they backed out.

Read more in the Guardian