Firms to be paid to take youngsters off dole
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by political editor Paul
Francis
Businesses could be paid up to
£6,000 by Kent County Council to take on some of the thousands of
young unemployed people in the county.
Council chiefs are proposing a
scheme they believe has the potential to tackle the growing crisis
caused by the escalating number of jobless youngsters.
There are now nearly 9,000 young
people in Kent aged between 18 and 24 who do not have jobs,
representing one in seven of those out of work.
The figure has risen to 8,990 in
2011 compared to 4,855 just three years ago, coinciding with the
recession.
At the same time, the number of
youngsters unemployed for a year has quadrupled in a year from 165
to 640.
Now KCC says it will offer employers £3,000 to take on a
non-graduate for 18 months and as much as £6,000 for a graduate. It
estimates that the scheme could help create as many as 600
apprenticeships and 60 opportunities for graduates.
The council says the scheme will
be ‘unique in its ambition and size’ and could create better
prospects for young people at less cost than the Future Jobs
Fund.
A report setting out the idea
says KCC could spend £2m from its Big Society Fund to help pay the
employer subsidies, with additional support from other government
programmes.
Private sector companies
employing fewer than 50 people would be targeted, as would other
social enterprises and public sector organisations that have not
taken on apprentices or graduates in the last two years.
Cllr Mike
Hill (Con), KCC cabinet member for communities, said: "We want to
do something to help the very large number of young unemployed
people by providing a way into work.
"One of the commonest complaints
is that youngsters say they cannot get a job without experience and
cannot get experience without a job. This is about trying to get
them that experience.
"If young people cannot get
work, it potentially stores up problems for us and others further
down the line."
Full details of how the scheme
will operate are expected to be published next month.
Monday, January 30 2012
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