Youth Unemployment
Debate between Jenny Willott and Chris Leslie(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jenny Willott
I will not give way. Everyone will have the chance to speak later if they wish.
As has been mentioned, unemployment among young people has gradually increased since 2002, and that was during the good times, so clearly in the bad times it will not be easy to get people back into work. It is now even harder for the new Government to get them into work, as they have already been out of work for longer, and we know that the longer people have been out of work and the further they are from the jobs market, the more effort, money and time it takes to get them back into work. However, the problem is that the future jobs fund was not working. It was created to ease youth unemployment and make the figures look better; it was not established to create long-term sustainable jobs. Opposition Members have mentioned that many times, but it is not that public sector jobs are not real jobs—of course they are—but rather, that the jobs created for the future jobs fund were not real jobs. They were short-term, six-month placements created for the purpose of the fund; they were not jobs that were sustainable in the long run. That has been borne out by the initial information on what people have done after being placed by the future jobs fund. About 50% of people were back on working-age benefits after seven months—one month after finishing their placement. Of those in a comparable group who found work through other programmes or found work for themselves, only 35% were back on jobseeker’s allowance after seven months. Clearly, the future jobs fund has not been working. It is performing less well than the other programmes that the previous Government put in place.
Jenny Willott
No; I want to ensure that there is time for as many people as possible to speak.
The future jobs fund is not cost-effective. It costs a lot, and that money could be better spent. In theory, it was aimed at those who were furthest from the jobs market, but it seems that a large number of those people in placements were graduates. For example, about 20% of the people taken on by Birmingham city council had at least one degree.