Any regular HotViews reader will know of my ‘passion’ for creating entry-level jobs for young people in the UK. See my most recent post Young Unemployed People. Of course, I want more IT entry-level jobs but, through my work with the Prince’s Trust, I care deeply about the fate of all of our young people – particularly the growing despair of those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Today, the Government has announced The Youth Contract.
The Wage Incentive Scheme gives £2275 (c half the minimum wage) to take on an 18-24 year old for at least six months, who is currently on a Work programme.
£50m is being earmarked for the most disadvantaged 16-17 year olds. The Government says it ‘is anxious that the voluntary sector is able to get involved’. Given the clearly demonstrated success of the Prince’s Trust, I hope they will benefit. The Trust has seen its funding from the public sector drop over recent years making my involvement in private sector fundraising of even greater importance.
The Apprenticeship Incentive Programme (providing grants of £1500) is being doubled to 40,000. Also young people can take up to eight weeks of unpaid work without it affecting their benefits.
Apparently this Youth Contract will cost c£1b over three years – money that will come from squeezing other benefits. But remember that there are now over 1m NEETs. So it is not a huge amount when compared to the size of the problem. Giving our youngsters some hope of gainful employment is one of the most important issues facing our society now. The repercussions of failure are scary.
In IT, I doubt that these levels of incentive will create many new opportunities. But ‘every little helps’. The IT sector does need to boost its apprenticeship programmes – we have been heartened by the good works here by BT, Microsoft, HP, IBM, Northgate and others. We need to train the next generation of developers so that we don’t need to turn to skilled workers from abroad so much. We also need to take on youngsters to be trained for lower skilled roles like technical support.