Youth unemployment in Glasgow is being tackled by a scheme that guarantees every young person aged 16-24 in the city with support in the form of education, training or a job.
This could point the way forward for workplace inclusion, with leader of the city council Gordon Matheson insisting the measures taken by the local authority means there will be no repeat of the “lost generation” of Glasgow in the 1980s.
Writing for the Glasgow Evening Times, the politician pointed out that the Labour Party’s Youth Jobs Taskforce, which he attended alongside Labour leader Ed Miliband, also offers solutions to the youth unemployment problems facing the UK.
UK city leaders, along with experts from business, civil society, the trade unions and academia team up to form the taskforce in a bid to come up with answers to unemployment among young people all over the country.
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“I am proud that Glasgow’s efforts to tackle youth unemployment are unmatched across the UK,” Mr Matheson told the newspaper.
The Commonwealth Apprenticeship Initiative Glasgow has also been set up to guarantee every qualifying school leaver a modern apprenticeship in the city and Mr Matheson stated this is the largest scheme of its nature in the whole country.
Some 2,300 young people have been helped to find their feet in the world of work through the programme over the course of the last four years.
“What we’re doing is making a difference. In the two years between August 2010 and August 2012, the rate of young people in Glasgow claiming Jobseekers Allowance fell by 4.4 per cent,” said Mr Matheson.
Youth unemployment measures have also been taken in Norwich, where Conservative Norwich North MP Chloe Smith has set up the Norwich for Jobs programme.
She told BBC News that the scheme encourages local employers to offer work experience, apprenticeships and jobs to the city’s 2,000 young unemployed.
