A Government scheme designed to help 160,000 young people into work has missed its first target by 92%, according to Department of Work and Pensions figures released on Monday.
The Youth Contract wage incentive scheme was intended to provide financial incentives for businesses to take on 16-24 year olds who had been out of work for more than six months, and set a target of 53,000 payments for its first year. But the actual number of payments was a mere 4,690.
The youth unemployment rate in South Shields is more than double that of the UK as a whole. 14.8% of the constituency’s 18-24 year olds are out of work, compared to 6.2% nationwide.
Emma said:
“These are deeply worrying figures that underline this Government’s failure to help young people in places like Shields find work. Wage incentives were supposed to be a flagship policy, but like the Work Programme they have fallen embarrassingly short of their targets. In many cases, the Coalition’s policies have actually been worse than doing nothing.
“Labour’s compulsory Youth Jobs Guarantee would make sure every young person out of work for more than a year would be offered a paid position to help them gain work experience and get their career off the ground. This is the kind of decisive action young people in Shields need. Instead they are getting failed scheme after failed scheme from this Coalition Government.”