Youth unemployment crisis – more needs to be done, says Unite
12 May 2011
Coalition plans to reverse the steep rise in youth unemployment
will be little more than ‘a mirage’ unless it is mirrored by a
programme to boost manufacturing and create demand in the economy,
Unite said today (Thursday 12 May).
Unite, the largest union in the country, questioned where the
private sector jobs were going to come from when growth in the
economy was so flaccid.
Unite described the government’s £60 million package to create
apprenticeships and work placements in private firms as ‘paltry’
and ‘a drop in the ocean’, as youth unemployment in the 16-24 year
age bracket stood at record levels.
Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey said: ”The government’s
claim that it is providing funding for 250,000 more apprenticeships
in the next four years and 100,000 work placements over the next
two years will be a mirage without other efforts to revive our
ailing economy.
”Ministers speak with a forked tongue on this issue. On one hand,
you have work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, saying
that he wants to tackle the scandal of youth unemployment, yet the
coalition scrapped Labour’s £1 billion Future Jobs Fund which
helped many young unemployed people back to work and has priced
them out of education.
”We don’t want a McJobs economy - young people scraping by on
low incomes with living standards far lower than their
parents - but proper well-paid jobs in manufacturing that
ensures Britain remains a strong, innovative and competitive player
in the world economy.
”Growth is sluggish, not helped by the huge amount of demand sucked
out of the economy by chancellor George Osborne’s obsession with
the ‘cut and cut again’ philosophy to the exclusion of all other
economic remedies.
”Business needs more comprehensive help from government if it is to
power the recovery. And young people need more from a
government that has pledged to stay wedded to savage economic
policies that even Mrs Thatcher would have blanched
at.“
ENDS
Notes to news editors:
For further information please contact Unite communications officer
Shaun Noble on 07768 693940
