This author has a Portuguese friend who applied for a job as a kitchen porter. "Duties include cleaning the kitchen and washing saucepans ... Experience is essential" thundered the advertisement. It's a kitchen that takes its saucepans very seriously. The reason it gave for rejecting the application was that they couldn't verify her Portuguese qualifications!

Cleaning jobs must rank among the most casual in Britain. Low-paid, many requiring early starts, few people put up with it any length of time, so there are always situations vacant. The work is easy, but frequently pressurised. Especially for large commercial premises, cutting costs is a priority. The result is that, not content with paying their staff minimum wage, managers also hand out enormous work assignments. Realistically, probably most cleaners cut corners. Remember that next time the government boasts of its efforts to cut MRSA in hospitals.

A similar situation exists for the guest-room cleaners of hotels ("housekeepers" or "chambermaids" as they're usually known), with little to show for their herculean efforts at the months end. This author, who once worked in a top-class London hotel that has counted prime ministers, world famous football players and film stars on its impressive guest list, remembers the horror story he was told by a housekeeping supervisor. She swore that all the housekeepers used the same cloth to clean the bath, the toilet and the taps. Rather than replace the cups with clean cups, they would wipe the used cups with a damp cloth – yes, you've got it; the same one they'd just cleaned the toilet with. Doing anything else, the housekeeping supervisor said, would make it impossible to stay on schedule.

The prospects are all but non-existent. Some cleaners set up their own businesses once they've understood what is expected of a commercial cleaner. However, the industry is dominated by some big players who will always have a competitive edge, making it difficult for small firms to compete.

But cleaning is convenient work for the unemployed. If it requires that you start early, it leaves you free to hunt for more appropriate employment in the afternoon. As a convenient "fill in" job, then, cleaning pays more than the dole, but it's not a career.