Employment: New Jobs

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Youth unemployment is clearly a critical part of our strategy. I am pleased to be able to say that the number of youth claimants for JSA went down this year—by 105,000—to 315,000, which is an enormous percentage change but it has been going down now for 19 consecutive months. Long-term youth unemployment has also been going down at a very sharp rate, and the number of young NEETs is the lowest for a decade. We have been pumping up the number of apprenticeships, with 1.5 million places created; work experience is vital—there are 113,000 places. The sector-based work academies are all pushing youngsters into the employment market. As noble Lords know, the key measure I always use is that we manage to make a turnaround in the number of youngsters out of work and out of education, which rose through the boom years of the previous Government. We have now turned that round.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Will the Minister repeat the figures he gave in terms of full-time equivalents?

[Lord Freud]

The figures I have are the actual figures: the number of youth claimants is down, by 105,000 in the year, to 315,000.