It was déjà vu all over again as I waited for my interview on Radio 5 Live about the unemployment figures on Wednesday. Nigel Lawson was leading for the government – saying that people had to have ‘patience’. The government minister was talking about schemes that have not yet been launched (the ‘Youth Contract’ which starts in April) and expecting people to be fooled. All I could do was think about trying to articulate the sense of futility and emptiness of the 550 young people long-term unemployed in my constituency, up from 150 a year ago. And the minister reduced the options to ‘so you want to spend more’.
We have a lot of work to do to help these young people. Listening to the Tories is a good reminder of what a Labour government can do to make a difference. Youth unemployment did go up after 2004, but only after we had cut it massively and moved on to helping lone parents and those on incapacity benefit (The youth labour market also deteriorated and there was a youth population bulge). I keep saying the new government did not invent the youth unemployment problem, but it has made it worse.
To be told on Wednesday that ‘stabilisation’ is a great sign of success – when youth unemployment is at record levels – adds insult to injury. It was also a reminder of the economic challenge for Britain and for Labour. We have to refight some old arguments, and rethink our own agenda at the same time. Youth unemployment is a good test case – Liam Byrne has rightly warned about the dangers of a ‘jobless generation’ (not the whole generation jobless but a group within it).
The macro picture makes a huge difference. Just read what Jonathan Portes has been writing. But there is a big structural, micro part to this. We need some hard Progress thinking and action in this area.
Last week I launched the report of a Commission on Youth Unemployment that I have been chairing. It has some practical ideas – about part-time job guarantees to allow time for job search (actually it would be required), an innovative mentoring programme of unemployed under-25s by employed under-25s, and some good prompts to local action including on issues like transport that are much more important than they are given credit for. It is frankly risible that the government keep parading the work programme as the answer. It only helps about one in 10 of the young people looking for work.
But we can’t just be the people shouting from the sidelines. Labour councils like Haringey are making a difference; ditto interesting ideas from the Welsh assembly government; ditto MPs like Siobhain McDonagh organising public and private sector action in their constituencies; ditto the regional Jobs Summits that I hope ACEVO will take forward. Labour is out of power nationally but by proving we can make a difference locally we will make a difference, help ourselves politically, and maybe even shame the government into action.
There is something else. The Eds are right to emphasise in primary colours things like the budget option of a bankers’ bonus tax to pay for 100,000 youth jobs. But we have to do a lot of work to back them up by thinking through the detail of how those jobs could be of maximum help to maximum numbers of those who need the help most.
The ACEVO report shows problems across the range – for the non-university bound, and especially for those at the bottom. There aren’t short-term fixes to this. 14-19 education and training isn’t right. Even the language of ‘staying on’ rather than ‘dropping out’ is wrong. Lots of young people don’t know what the opportunities are – beyond hairdressing for young women and construction or IT for young lads to judge by a session I attended in my constituency last week, which was full of bright, engaged, positive young people, desperately needing the chance to show what they were capable of. (They were attending an interesting 12-week immersion course – two days a week – to give them a leg-up, better information, clearer routes).
One of the things we need to get out of the local efforts is real practical evidence of how to meet today and tomorrow’s labour market needs through public, private and voluntary sector action. For example, we cite Barnardo’s and The Prince’s Trust in the report. To tackle the problems of the bottom 10 per cent – those least likely to have qualifications, most likely to have other problems, least likely to be taken on in an upturn – we are going to have to address all sorts of structural, cultural, personal issues and the voluntary sector has good experience of this. This goes way beyond ‘welfare reform’ as we have known it.
I think there is a chance to bring together employers, young people and education providers in new ways, sensitive to different needs in different parts of the country. I look forward to hearing what people are doing, but more important to them just doing it. Let local areas have the ideas, and then work with us to press the government to give more flexibility to allow them to make a difference.
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David Miliband is a former foreign secretary and is MP for South Shields
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Now are you telling me that you cant think of ways to create 550 jobs or even 600 jobs? why is it that countries like Canada and Australia don’t, have the same level of unemployment as we do and they even advertise for people to immigrate and work there ,the thing is there is no difference between the Works program and that, interesting 12-week immersion course – that you attended,after the the programs are done there are still no jobs so these so called leg ups defeat the purpose,why prepare people for jobs that don’t exist,
so that when the jobs do exist they are in a position to get them
Good points I wrote to Sir Stephen Bubb at ACEVO but never got a reply and I also wrote to David and Ed but sadly as expected also got no reply.
The only person who has replied is Siobhain McDonagh, who said thank you in return for saying well done for doing what she has done, whose response unfortunately but I suspect conveniently ignored comments relating to ‘our’ administration failing to address the need to change the benefits system so that it could accommodate protections against exploitation while at the same time offering work placements to partly prevent a ‘jobless generation’.
The consequence of those failures is workfare, the scheme being described as slave labour by some and a scheme which has only come about through the inability of the unions and Labour to agree a system that instead of confining the unemployed to benefits, no work and in turn all the issues related to ‘joblessness’, would have maintained employability and or given placements to those hoping to set out on the career path, albeit part time hours matched to the benefits payments received.
No exploitation but hours of paid work, in roles that also didn’t exploit but assisted with career paths which were safeguarded so employers and business who will see workfare as a way to manipulate their staffing needs couldn’t do it.
Although the system wasn’t a full solution to unemployment it did give the chance for people “to show what they were capable of ” to possible employers while working for them which would have been beneficial to them and those looking to recruit.