Plea to aid 1m young people at risk of losing jobs
Brown calls for summit to tackle unemployment
THE GOVERNMENT is being urged to hold a jobs summit amid warnings that up to one million young people could be unemployed within weeks.
The Alliance For Full Employment ( AFFE), launched by Labour former premier Gordon Brown, said ministers must set out a joint plan agreed with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England’s city region metro mayors to tackle youth unemployment.
Research for the alliance suggests that 1.5m young people will need help over the coming year to deal with the increase in unemployment.
Professor Paul Gregg, who wrote a report for AFFE, said the
Government’s Kickstart youth unemployment programme will not provide anywhere near enough places for those in need of support.
Around 60 per cent of redundancies since March have hit the under- 25s and the unemployment rate for young men is already more than three times the adult rate, said the report, released today.
Mr Brown said: “Today we are dealing with a far bigger challenge than in the 1980s and it needs a UK- wide jobs summit bringing together the regions
and nations with the Prime
Minister.
“Some will say this is too difficult to organise given the current breakdown in relationships between Number 10 and the regions and nations.
“But if we do not listen to what is happening on the ground and mobilise all the resources of the whole of the UK and work together to co- ordinate our response, we will fail a generation of young people as surely as we did for too long in the 1980s.”
Minister for Employment Mims Davies previously said the
Government’s £ 30bn Plan for Jobs “will continue to help protect, support and create jobs”.
She said: “We’re supporting people into work, doubling the number of our Work Coaches across Jobcentres and helping those made jobless by the pandemic through our newly launched Job Entry Targeted Support ( JETS).”
She added: “From next month young people across the country will be starting roles on the £ 2bn Kickstart scheme helping them get crucial experience and build vital skills.”
We will fail a generation of young people as surely as we did in the 1980s. Gordon Brown, who has launched the Alliance For Full Employment.