Fair enough if that is what these people want to do, but in this day and age there really is no need for it.
Whenever one of these stories gets in the tabloids it's always clear where they've gone wrong - the guy who put himself on ebay just smacks of desperation - he wants an employer to give him a job out of pity when what they probably want is someone who will be good at the job, which is what he'd do well to sell himself as.
Go into an employment agency and as for "just a job, any job" and they'll tell you they haven't got any jobs, but give them a clear idea of what kind of job you want and they'll sit down and spend time with you trying to find you something. It's the same with employers - they want their employees to have a passion and enthusiasm for the job, not just turn up every day because they have to. Some of these jobseekers complain that they've done management jobs but "can't even get a fast food job"; again the employer wants someone who wants to be doing the job and appreciates it, not someone who sees it as a poxy entry level job which is beneath them. Very few bosses like to think of their shop floor as a 'sweat shop'.
I did a day's agency work with this guy who was an electrical engineer back in his country but even after applying for over 1000 jobs couldn't even get a day doing menial cable pulling here. He seemed to be implying the employers were all just racist, but I tactfully suggested it could be a problem with something else, like his CV. His CV was 8 pages. I pointed out that that was probably the problem but he wasn't prepared to listen.
If someone really is prepared to do "any job" as they claim, and they haven't had a response after 1000 applications they're clearly doing something wrong. It probably isn't difficult to see what that is, and that should be the job of the Jobcentre to point out.