50,000 young jobless Britons told to work or lose benefits

Nearly 50,000 young unemployed Britons will today be told to take jobs created by the Government or lose their benefits.

The posts will include sports coaches, education assistants, tourist 'ambassadors' and jobs in environmental work and social care.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper will offer to pay for 47,000 new jobs, salaried at the minimum wage, in a desperate attempt to limit youth unemployment in the recession.

The announcement marks the first tranche of 100,000 posts being created for those aged 18 to 24 who are out of work.

Every young person who has been out of work for 12 months or more is to be guaranteed a job or a training place, funded by £1billion of taxpayers' money.

Those who decline the first offer will lose unemployment benefits for two weeks, a second refusal will mean four weeks' lost benefit, and a third 26 weeks.

All the posts will be in the public or voluntary sector, Government sources said, though some private firms are involved in partnerships with charities.

Separately, the Government is providing £40million to fund internships and work placements for graduates. Businesses are being urged to take part in the scheme, which is also backed by taxpayers' money.

The number of unemployed young people is fast approaching a million.

In the past year, the jobless rate among 18 to 24-year-olds has risen from 11.9 per cent to 17.3 per cent.

The Prince's Trust said that one young person lost their job almost every minute during the past three months.

The crisis is about to deepen as more school-leavers and graduates start to look for jobs. Critics say the Government's scheme is little more than a sticking plaster designed to limit unemployment figures.

There are fears that young people will simply be removed from the claimant count for the six-month duration of their job, only to see them return to the dole afterwards.

But Miss Cooper will say: 'We are determined not to lose a generation of talent because of the recession.

Many young people were denied the help they needed in the recessions of the Eighties and Nineties and ended up out of work for months and years. Too many never got a start in the jobs market.

'We are determined not to let that happen again. This is why we are announcing 47,000 new jobs for young people today.

'And - with business and charities - we are launching a national call to action to our fellow employers to join us in backing young Britain - to give every young person a job, training place, skills or work experience.'

Lord Mandelson will say: 'Our national campaign to help every young person to find a job, training or work skills and experience is not just a response to the recession but an investment in our future.

'Our work with businesses and employers to provide internships for graduates is bearing fruit and from tomorrow graduates will be able to access a first wave of more than 2,000 opportunities.'

BPP COMMENT: Stop exporting our jobs to Third World sweatshops and stop importing cheap foreign labour to compete with British workers and pay those British workers a decent wage and no-one would have to be forced into jobs that paid just over what you can get on benefits. Mandelson will never realise this in a million years sat in his ivory tower with the rest of the Westminster traitors.