Chris Carter is a 2nd Year Politics Student and Labour Councillor for Loughborough Ashby. His new regular column for Label Magazine will be republished Online once a fortnight.
Youth unemployment is like a lot of things we’ve seen in the news recently, a tragedy. With one in every five 16-24 year olds not in employment or any kind of training, young people are bearing the weight of this downturn and yes, this statistic includes us when we graduate.
With youth employment being so low, it’s a strain to see what the government is doing to help us, or what bright future is on the horizon for the 20% of us not currently in employment.
With the future jobs fund of £1 billion being cut just 12 months ago, designed specifically to give young people the boost they needed into finding employment, the government has U-turned and set out pretty much exactly the same policy under a different name.
However, it provides a smaller subsidy to those who receive it and gets young people into work, but if they do not complete their tenure in work experience through the jobs fund, then they lose their benefits.
It’s a start, but only solves the problem for 500,000 young people over three years. With over one million young people currently out of work and youth unemployment climbing by 140,000 in just one year, there’s still a big mountain to climb and a long and dangerous Eurozone crisis still to be endured.
Without a visionary government, with a radical plan of action for targeting those in our age bracket, it’s quite simply impossible to accept and simply not give the necessary provisions to supply us with a better future.
Do you agree with Chris? Give us your view by commenting below or emailing labeleditor@lufbra.net
