'Work full-time for no pay or lose your benefits', says employment minister in crackdown on NEETs

 
29 August 2012

Young unemployed Londoners will be forced to do three months of unpaid full-time work or have their benefits cut, the Government announced today.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling said 18- to 24-year-olds who have spent less than six months in employment since leaving education will now have to work for their £56-a-week jobseeker’s allowance.

They will do work experience placements in charities or social organisations such as care homes for 30 hours a week over 13 weeks. The age group will also have to spend 10 hours a week searching for a job.

Mr Grayling, who announced the move alongside Boris Johnson, denied it was “slave labour”. Instead it would help young Londoners improve their career prospects.

He said it is “not at all unreasonable to ask you to give something to the community before it gives something to you”. Writing exclusively in today’s Standard, he said: “It’s time to look at a different way in Britain. A something-for-nothing culture does no one any favours.

“It makes those who are doing the right thing cynical. And for those who head straight into the welfare state, it sets them out in life on precisely the wrong footing.”

The scheme will be tested this year in 16 London boroughs including the riot-hit areas of Croydon and Haringey. The Government then hopes to roll out the scheme across London and the rest of the UK.

The Mayor said: “I would much rather people had the fun and the experience of work placements and the confidence that comes with it than being on benefits and doing nothing [and] seeing their self-esteem fall away.”

Mr Grayling added: “The usual suspects will cry ‘slave labour’. They always do ... In an ideal world, no one should get something for nothing.

“If you haven’t yet had the chance to make a financial contribution, then it’s not at all unreasonable to ask you to give something to the community before it gives something to you.”

Labour’s shadow employment minister Stephen Timms said: “Work experience can be invaluable in helping young people find out about life in the work place. But what long-term unemployed young people really need is a job.

"Ministers should bring in Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee and get over 100,000 young people into real paying work. They could pay for it tomorrow with a tax on bankers’ bonuses.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “If we’re to avoid the creation of a permanent lost generation in the capital, a more sensible approach would be to guarantee decent training or a work trial to all young people from the first day of their claim, with a guarantee of a real experience of paid work being made to every young person who has spent over six months unemployed.”

Some 191,000 aged 16 to 18 are now Neets — not in employment, education or training — a 10.3 per cent rise from 181,000 in the first quarter of the year. Among 16-to-24-year-olds there are 968,000 Neets, up from 949,000.

The Government last week said the rise in the number of Neets was seasonal and that the overall trend was down 0.2 per cent on a year ago. But it was a blow to ministers who have made cutting the number of Neets a priority.

Labour has said talent was “going to waste” and highlighted a rise of 100,000 in the number of Neets since the general election in May 2010.

The figure reached a record high in the third quarter of last year, with 1,163,000 young people aged 16 to 24 out of education or work.

The pilot will target around 6,000 young Londoners. Mr Grayling said the “scheme will ask young Londoners signing on for the first time to do three months of full-time community work in return for their benefits”.

Mr Johnson added: “Early intervention will reduce the risks of benefit dependency and increase the chances of long-term employment that is good for young people and good for the economic growth of this great city.”

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