- Your 10/11 hour shift is considered as one day's work, if the shift goes over midnight, then the day which you did the most of the hours is the day they consider you were working, unless that is a Sunday, in which case they consider the other day the day of employment.
- You would not have lost employment if you lose your employment and then are re-hired in the same position. That could be construed as a fraud. To be eligible for JB, you must lose at least one day's employment. You have to provide them with a record of your pattern of recent employment, so they will know what constitutes a loss of one day's employment. If you got some extra work that required you to work an extra day, and then subsequently lost that, that could constitue a loss of employment.
- You should be eligible for Benefit (depending on the stamps that you have) as soon as you meet the criteria (ie, available for and seeking full-time employment and suffered substantial loss of employment). The fact that you are starting a contract in September is something that they will look at when considering whether you are genuinely seeking employment, if they think that you are simply drawing a payment while you wait for this contract to start, you could find yourself refused.
If you find that you are not eligible for Benefit because you have not lost a day's employment, you may be eligible for Jobseekers Allowance, although this is means tested. There is no requirement to have lost employment for the Allowance, although the requirement to be genuinely seeking and available for full-time employment still apply.