Young unemployed to be offered work in construction and hospitality in UK | Youth unemployment
Young unemployed people will be offered training or work opportunities in construction, maintenance and hospitality under the UK government’s scheme, but their benefits may be cut if they do not accept the offers.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden announced on Sunday that 350,000 new training or workplace opportunities would be offered to young people through universal credit, but added there would be “sanctions” for claimants who do not take part.
The policy is part of the Labor government’s plans to halt the rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet). There are almost a million NEETs aged 16 to 24 in Britain in what some experts call a youth employment crisis.
Rachel Reeves announced last month that she would allocate £820 million from her budget. “youth guarantee” Entitlement to six months of paid work placement for any claimant aged 18 to 21 who has been on universal credit and looking for work for 18 months.
The job guarantee scheme will launch in the spring, with up to 55,000 young people lining up. The government said the jobs would be in areas of greatest need, including Birmingham and Solihull, the East Midlands, Greater Manchester, Hertfordshire and Essex, central and eastern Scotland and south-west and south-east Wales.
McFadden also announced that 900,000 young people will be given a “dedicated job support session” followed by four weeks of “intensive support” to get work experience, training or to try to find a job.
The government had an “expectation” that young people would take on the job, he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
Asked whether young people could be on benefits if they don’t cooperate, McFadden said: “Yes, enforcement is part of the system. On the one hand it’s an offer, on the other it’s an expectation, because the future we don’t want for young people is to be sitting at home on benefits when there are other options out there.”
Ben Harrison, director of the Work Foundation, a think tank based at Lancaster University, said the funding and the prospect of more intensive work coaching were welcome but warned that the overall effects could be harmful if the threat of sanctions pushed people into unsuitable or unsafe work.
“Evidence from the UK and abroad clearly shows that these plans need to focus on connecting individuals to ‘good’ jobs with living wages, job security and progression opportunities if they are to lead to long-term sustainable employment,” he said.
“If the reforms push young people into ‘any job’ under threat of welfare sanctions, they could do more harm than good to their future job prospects. Almost half of young people currently not reporting education, employment or apprenticeships are disabled, so it is vital that participants have some say over the types of jobs and sectors in which they work.”
Harrison emphasized that the hospitality, care and construction sectors targeted by the government often provide insecure jobs, making it difficult for people to step into long-term stability.
The Department for Work and Pensions said “there is an expectation that young people will take advantage of the opportunities offered to them and sanctions against benefits may be imposed for those who do not use the support offered without good reason”.
