The Government's new Youth Contract: what do you think?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

You may have seen/heard that Nick Clegg has announced today a £1billion Youth Contract to tackle youth unemployment.

The Youth Contract includes, among other things, subsidised work and training placements, and a programme to help the most disengaged 16 and 17-year-olds get back to school or college, onto an apprenticeship or into a job with training. You can read more about it here.

The Cabinet Office has just been in touch with us at MNHQ to ask us what Mumsnetters think about these plans. So we've said we'll start a thread to find out.

Please do tell!

also with public services being cut to death if you're going to give away free labour i'd rather see it go to much needed services with part time voluntary, experience gaining community service that keeps individuals feeling a part of something bigger and like they are contributing something meaningful to their community rather than feeling they're being pimped out to billion pound profit businesses to stack shelves.

what would there sick pay provision look like? what about holiday entitlements? or pension opportunities? presumably they'd have little or none of the employee rights that have been fought for?

a service like connexions that already knows how to work with young people and already has strong links with the community would be well placed to match young people with work with charities, community centres, playschemes, old people's services etc and to motivate them into volunteering with them for part time hours whilst still looking for work. they could even get young people working in groups setting up and running services. then the community would be getting something, the youngsters would be getting something and they'd still have time to be looking for work or working on their training/education part time (connexions could find a part time voluntary role plus a provider of a part time course in computing for example).

this would feel far more palatable and sane than pimping them out to tesco's as cheap shelf stackers. and it would encourage a sense of a stake in their own community rather than just being a meaningless little pawn tossed about at the whim of the powers that be which is a massively disenfranchising experience.

Maybe I'm not understanding this properly but is this not the same as Future Jobs Fund which this government halted part way through when they came to power, wasting a lot of already invested time and money?

They need to give young people, and all unwillingly out of work people fore that matter, proper jobs/training at proper wages.

Unemployment isnt an excuse for slavery.

Concerns as an employer:
Who will pay for training? (for example who will cover the cost of an experienced member of staff training the wk experience person and shaddowing them)
Who will pay for the relevant CRB checks?
Will the position be thought about when allocated to the young person? For example do they apply and if their aspirations/ background would lead to the industry are they preferred?

Questions as someone who works with the young people:
What would the proceedure be for sickness, unattendance?
what about drug/ alcohol consumption at work? For example would this include people on a methadone programme?
Would the education course attendance be enforced?- for example if the person doesnt complete (not necessarily pass tests but complete ie turning up and participating) would they get their benefits taken away?
Are the work experience jobs realsitic in what career the person will be able to achieve?

The big flaw with this scheme is that it's an old one with a new name. There was something on TV a while ago about 4 teens who'd been through a similar scheme. They all started off really lazy but at the end some of them were enjoying work and highly motivated. BUT the 6 months ended and the employer got shot of them to get a new lot with a further subsidy :(

In the old days there were lots of real jobs for the young unskilled. The older workers taught you how to behave and you went from sweeping up and making the tea to the same work as the rest. They don't exist anymore. I don't know how you turn the clock back, but that's what we've lost. I agree with whoever said the problem is employers want you fully trained and with relevant experience before they'll even consider you. DH has been trying to change career but every job wants experience of their particular industry plus degree/ C&G etc.

We are facing the prospect of being forced to work until almost 70, while the young fit and strong have no prospects- daft.

Oh and I would add that DH got lumbered at work with some people who'd been told they had to take a job or lose benefits. He said they were awful. Refused to do anything- sneaking off on "breaks" all the time - and deliberately breaking rules so they'd be sacked. How do you prevent that?

"would you do it?"

Yes. In the period between leaving school and leaving college I did any job I could get my hands on - I worked day jobs, evening jobs, weekend jobs, sometimes all at the same time, none of them glamorous. Young people also have the freedom to move away from home to take a job... something not always open to older people with dependents.

My 19 year old daughter is struggling to find work - the jobs are just not out there for teens with no experience. I would love her to do some kind of work experience to get her steadily declining confidence back and earn some money of her own, to get that sense of self respect and independance. She would be happy stacking shelves right now as atleast its something. She genuinely wants to work.

However - if she was forced into a job for no more than she currently gets on benefits (has the 50/50 thing been confirmed?) then it would knock her confidence back even further. It does these kids no good to be told they are only good for cheap labour! What she needs is training and support. What she needs is a country without this damn recession and where graduates are not being forced to take the unskilled jobs that the unqualified so desperatly need. What she needed 3 years ago was a school that didnt put so much pressure on her to pass exams for their own league tables, that she crumbled under that pressure as she is so sensitive and ended up leaving school at 16 with barely a handful of GCSE's. What she needs is a society that doesnt judge young people so harshly.

This move is simply a bit of sticky tape over a problem that goes much further than a shortage of jobs for youth. Much much further. I dont know the answers but I do know this move is a dangerous one - our youth need to be believed in, to be respected, and to be supported properly. Not sold out as cheap labour.

DS is 22 and has been used as cheap labour since he left school.
He got a place on a construction training scheme as a school leaver theat he left wehn he got a place as an apprentice with a construction company.
He worked for 3 years and when he was fully qualified thay let him go when the recesssion hit.
As a qualified but inexperienced bricklayer he struggled to find work and just drifted into unemployment.
After a few months he got a place on a government training scheme with a local company that treated him appallingly.
Since then he has worked for agencies but has had no luck finding anything permanant.
The jobcentre keep getting him to apply for other apprentice jobs for £100 a week as an office junior. I have seen his self esteem and self confidence plummet.
He now has no money, he had to sell his car so can't travel for interviews. He feels like he has no future and is at rock bottom.
What he needs is a job that will give him back his self esteem, not another place on a scheme that will throw him back on the scrap heap when it is finished.

sorry forgot to actually have an oppinion

For the young people I work with i think it a FANTASTIC idea. FWIW I run a supported house providing short term accomodation for the homeless/ care leavers/ ppl with drug or alcohol problems etc.

The majority of the young people I have experienced dont have the incentive to work and are often 2nd/ 3rd generation unemployed. It's the lack of confidence about getting a job and getting them to realise working feels good.

Also its about getting them in to a routine of waking before mid day and going to bed befire midnight and feeling part of society.

Yet the work experience will have to tread the fine line between getting a foot on the ladder to inspire them and not giving them unrealistic expectations of a career they can just expect to walk right into and then will refuse any job the feel is beneath them.

and presumably he's living with you purepurple? because it must be impossible with the chaos of all that in and out of work to be able to rent anywhere, albeit just a room in a shared house, for himself.

skinny do you think there is a difference between your average youngster and homeless care leavers/ppl with drug and alcohol problems?

this government seems to be treating all youngsters as if they're delinquents and all benefit claimants and disabled as if they are adult versions of the same delinquency. whilst this scheme might well be great for those kids, particularly those with behaviour problems, no skills or qualifications etc that is not where all young people are at. youth does equal delinquency.

Yes, he is living with us. I get him to do jobs around the house and charge him an extortionate amount for his board and lodging because I don't want him to see staying at home as an easy ride.
I have lost out on my student discount on my council tax because he is still at home. I could have got a 25% discount as I am a full time student (even though I work 32 hrs over 4 days) but they won't give it to me because there are 3 adults living in the house.

"this government seems to be treating all youngsters as if they're delinquents "

That's grossly unfair. I think young people everywhere are finding it difficult to get into their first jobs because employers are shedding jobs, not recruiting new staff, not replacing people who are retiring and are, in many cases, asking existing staff to work for less in an effort to reduce costs and keep the business open. Coming into that environment with zero experience, even if the qualifications are there on paper, means young people are at a disadvantage. And those with no qualifications have an even more uphill battle. At least this scheme gives them chance to get experience even if it's at minimum wage and subsidised. What's better... to sit at home for £50/week or get some experience for £50/week?

Cogito, where is the incentive for employers to create a real job if the government continues to give them free labour?

So there will be young people with some experience, but they still wont get a job if this free labour exists.

I can see that this scheme could help someone it just doesnt appear to be the young people!

many of these kids will have qualifications and prospects but just no job opportunities because of a culture of knowing you can ask for degrees and years of experience for even the most basic poorly paid jobs and get them flocking in. stacking shelves will not be experience for these kids - experience of what? many of them will be bright and able youngsters who cannot afford to go to university but are perfectly capable of doing a proper job. to treat them as if they're delinquents who need to be made to stack shelves and need lecturing on how to set an alarm clock and how to perform personal hygene and not be a drain on society just adds insult to injury.

and if tesco can take on 3 youngsters working for half pay (in terms of contributions from employers) and be given basic, unskilled work to do that requires little supervision and involves no aquisition of skills whilst having to pay no employers contributions to income tax presumably or providing any employee benefits what do you think is going to happen to the numbers of real jobs they advertise for the general public?

not all youngsters are socially inadequate, delinquent, idiots who need to be kicked out of bed. many of them will be very keen to find a real job rather than spending 40hrs a week stacking shelves at tescos.

in fact some of these youngsters (up to 24 remember) will have BEEN to university and have huge debts because they were made to pay for it only then to be told they're still worthless shits who can be made to go stack shelves for 8 weeks at a time.

i mean seriously? a 21 year old who has been encouraged by society to get into 20k's worth of debt doing a degree because they should fulfill their potential and they should go for a proper job and have ambition and education is so important etc etc being told they're a feckless delinquent for not being able to get a job in a recession and being sent to tesco's to stack shelves for 'experience'???

the more i think about it the more fucked up this is. yes it would possibly be a good idea for the 16-19 yrold bracket who have opted out of school but have no experience of working or skills but guess what - that wouldn't effect the unemployment figures would it because we've already made them disappear from the stats. but for 21 yr old graduates with 5 figure debts and a proven history of achievement and commitment through doing their degree?

"The government says the £1bn being made available is new money."

New money? In what sense? Are they going to print it?

It's already hard enough for young people to find a job; I can see it getting harder as they approach big employers only to be told that there are no entry level positions available as they can now get subsidised forced labour to fill those positions....

Also: "if trainees fail to complete their programme they will lose their benefits". I assume there will be some kind of tribunal set up to deal with cases where young people claim that ill-treatment or abuse has forced them to leave their positions early? Or will employers get the message that they can treat their trainees however they want, knowing that they will be forced to stay-and shut up- or lose their benefits?

Expensive, tribunals, aren't they?

santac - that is v interesting. You must be in a different part of the country to us. Here it was a shambles, and despite our best efforts (we were constantly chasing the organisers, asking where the voluntary work was/what we should be doing to help/ etc) it all fell flat and DS was v disillusioned. Hence my point about the delivery. It could have been so very different!

please stop and think this through I have just read that young people will be offered a careers interview - if this is with the job centre advisers then it is a disaster waiting to happen. JC+ advisers have been known to complete their qualifications in 6-12 weeks - does this not tell you something? If you are going ahead with this programme then please at the very least do it properly. Information and advice given by an agency who work to targets as the job centre do IS NOT impartial and they never can be.

This is public money - you have a duty to use it wisely and appropriately.

To be honest I think that describing certain jobs as being beneath people is wrong and hugely insulting to those in those industries.