Labour's Youth Jobs Taskforce, comprising entrepreneurs, trade unionists and academics, will swap ideas on unemployment.
A Labour-led alliance of entrepreneurs, academics and trade unionists will be announced on Monday in an initiative to tackle youth unemployment in Britain's 10 worst-hit areas.
Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, will tell the conference that the group, Labour's Youth Jobs Taskforce, will monitor government policy. It will also aim to help MPs and councils set up job summits and create a network of councillors to swap ideas on employing young jobless people.
The body, which will also include an executive from the accountancy giant KPMG, is meant to show Labour putting forward a serious plan to tackle unemployment, in contrast to the government's policy which has been criticised for being lacklustre by a committee of MPs. Byrne will speak to conference live from a youth jobs summit in Manchester to launch the taskforce.
"Britain's youth jobs crisis can't wait for a Labour government in 2015. We have to take action today. So Labour's leaders from across the country are today uniting in a new drive to give the best thing we can give to our young people: a chance to work," he will say.
"The Tory-led government's measures have failed. Across the UK, it's now Labour leading the fight-back against the curse of youth unemployment. Our task is to make sure the best ideas anywhere become Labour's approach everywhere."
It is a year since youth unemployment rose above a million for the first time since records began. Around 40% of unemployed people in the UK are aged 16-25.
Labour has accused ministers of a U-turn for scrapping the previous government's future jobs fund and then introducing its own youth jobs initiative, the youth contract.
Whitehall officials point out that the future jobs fund placed people in the public sector or community organisations and that they did not always learn marketable skills.
By contrast, the youth contract is aimed at private sector opportunities. The aim is to match people up with employers who might go on to offer them real jobs.
The drawback is that it depends on the willingness of private sector companies to step forward.
Byrne will chair the taskforce which will also include Alan Buckle, the global deputy chairman of KPMG, the chief executive of Daylesford Organic, and representatives from Unison and the TUC.
Prof Paul Gregg, a former member of the CBI's steering committee, has also agreed to join, Labour said.
The launch comes as Labour local authorities demand new powers from the government under the City Deal programme to tackle youth unemployment. Some councils have prepared bids to the £100m Big Lottery Talent Match fund designed to finance youth jobs initiatives.
In June, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions calculated the 20 worst areas for youth unemployment in the country, all of them in the north of England, Scotland and Wales.
Source: 1st October 2012, The Guardian by Rajeev Sayl
No comments:
Post a Comment