Young jobseekers are getting just 10 minutes of support a week from overstretched work coaches under government plans to get them back into employment, the author of a major review into youth inactivity has warned.
The Government’s youth unemployment advisor, former Blair-era health secretary Alan Milburn, told The i Paper he believes young people who want to work are being let down by a welfare system which is not built to support them.
The number of Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs) has been rising since Covid lockdowns ended in 2021. According to the latest government data, there are 957,000 young NEETs, equating to more than one in eight of all 16-24-year-olds in England.
As Milburn gears up to publish the first part of his government-commissioned report into youth unemployment on Thursday, he said: “There is an argument – a myth – that young people are lazy, that they’re inventing their mental health problems, that they’re a ‘snowflake generation’ – and nothing could be further from the truth.”
“We have seen that some work coaches are managing caseloads of 100 unemployed people, meaning they can’t offer proper tailored support to young people in appointments that last ten minutes.”
Milburn, who has been travelling around England to meet with young people as part of the review, added: “All I see is young people trying. They’re sending in dozens, sometimes hundreds of applications for jobs and receiving literally nothing – not an acknowledgement, not a rejection, not any feedback. It’s the wall of silence that kills their hope.”
Milburn added that Britain’s welfare system contained “so many perverse disincentives which were almost like they’d been designed to discourage people from going into work.”
Former health secretary Alan Milburn said work coaches have too many young jobseekers on their books (Photo: Joe Giddens/PA)These could include the fact that housing benefit decreases as a person earns more, which could make it difficult to afford rent.
“The welfare system is managing inactivity rather than reducing it,” Milburn said.
At a Jobcentre Plus in Birmingham, Ian Oakes, a work coach who works in a team that specialises in supporting young NEETs, told The i Paper: “We have around 2,000 youth claimants in our catchment area.”
Security guards are the first people you see as you enter the Jobcentre Plus. Once inside, there are desktop computers for job seekers and work coaches to sit in numbered booths, which line the enormous, open-plan warehouse-style room.
Vicky Spratt at the JobCentre Plus in BirmimghamIn Birmingham, the unemployment rate is above the national average of 4.9 per cent at 13.6 per cent, equivalent to 77, 715 claimants.
Zane Co, 24, has braved street closures for an Aston Villa Parade, which will celebrate the team’s newfound status as Europa League champions, to meet his work coach.
Afterwards, he says he has applied for dozens of hospitality jobs and heard back from just “four or six”.
“I want to work,” Zane says enthusiastically. “I don’t want to be out of work. I am a people person; I thrive being out in the world. I want to meet people and show myself at my best.”
Through the youth specialist team at Birmingham’s Jobcentre Plus, Zane explains that he has done various training courses, including one which saw him “graduate top of the class”, which was run by the major alcohol company Diageo.
“You’d think that having a name like Diageo on my CV would mean something,” Zane says. “I thought…someone would hire me, but nobody responded.”
In addition to such training courses offered by the DWP, there are also apprenticeships. The Government has recently expanded funding for employers who hire young apprentices receiving universal credit via the Youth Guarantee Scheme, which subsidises wages for six months.
There is a scheme called Movement to Work which helps young people gain work experience.
And there are SWAPs (Sector-based Work Academy Programme), which offer jobseekers claiming universal credit or jobseekers allowance training to learn new skills, then gain work experience, and ultimately secure a guaranteed job interview in just six weeks.
Specialist youth work coach Ian Oakes at the Jobcentre Plus in BirminghamOakes identifies the problems faced by the young adults he sees as being twofold.
Firstly, he says that “people are leaving school but not being given [careers] support. They’re not seeing careers advisors, so they come to us with very little idea of what is out there, what kind of jobs, what kind of training.”
Secondly, Oakes believes the move to digital and anonymous job applications has caused problems. “Most claimants I meet want to work; they just need some guidance,” he says. “It’s about their confidence, too, which we can help build.”
A short time later, 18-year-old jobseeker Rahim is the next to sit down with Oakes. He studied electrical installation at school, but is struggling to get to the level of training required to get into work full-time.
There is one SWAP, working with electrical installation on railways, that looks particularly exciting for Rahim, but, sadly, Oakes notes that he would need to be 19 years old to qualify for it due to government funding restrictions. Rahim looks disappointed.
Certain SWAPs, including in rail engineering, require young people to be over the age of 19 at the start of the academic year. This is typically due to funding constraints, such as the minimum age requirements applied to government-backed Adult Education Budget courses.
“There aren’t many apprenticeships coming up, I’m afraid”, Oakes says. “Ah, but here’s one in aerospace.”
Rahim will apply for that. But he will need to be able to drive there if he gets the job. And, when he and Ian next meet, they will discuss other training programme options.
As he leaves, Rahim, who is living at home with his mum, says, “I really want to work as an engineer, but it’s difficult to get into and, I think, because I’m younger, there are less options. At least here they help us apply… I think a lot of people don’t know how. Everyone thinks we’re lazy, but we just need some support.”
Oakes says he would like the job centre to be more welcoming and hopes he and his team make it feel more like a “jobs club.”
However, currently just 9 per cent of employers across the country are using job centres to find new employees.
Over the weekend, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden signalled that he wants to reclassify apprenticeships as education so that families no longer lose benefits if a child embarks upon one, as well as exploring more funding to expand SWAPs like the one Rahim was ineligible for.
As phase one of his review into youth unemployment concludes, Milburn concludes that a “system reset” is needed.
“The competition [for jobs] is higher,” he says, warning that graduates are “trading down” as there are fewer graduate employment options and making “the labour market more competitive” for everyone.
At the same time, Milburn warns that zero-hour contracts have denigrated the quality of the jobs available for people who don’t go to university, adding: “Young people are caught in this sort of vice-like grip where the quality of jobs has declined, and the quantity of jobs has declined.”
Hence then, the article about dwp work coaches have just 10 minutes a week to help young people find jobs was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( DWP work coaches have just 10 minutes a week to help young people find jobs )
Also on site :