Showing posts with label Neets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neets. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Young Jobless Left With Legacy Of Despair

A legacy of despair is being left behind by a fag-end government with a lost generation of youngsters sinking in a sea of despondency and destined for a life on the dole. After a decade of dire jobs drivel, shocking figures reveal the true extent of a government paying lip-service to any pretence of working 'Labour' credentials.

A Policy Exchange think tank report based on official DWP figures over the last ten years makes grim reading. The true extent of the jobs figures sham highlights a shocking 6 million poor souls on out-of-work benefits.

And that comes as embarrassing official figures reveal record numbers of Neets - the 18-24-year-olds not in school, college or work so beloved of jobs figures manipulators.

According to quarterly figures, there are now more than 100,000 more 18-24-year-olds Neets - not in education, employment or training - than there were a year ago. That's now a disgraceful 835,000.

Given half a chance very few people would choose to live on state handouts. But when you are being screwed for a job left right and centre there's little choice.

Pride gives way to despair as hope is abandoned for all those who try to enter a dwindling jobs market. And with forced unemployment comes crime and punishment from a society of the fortunate few.

Hiding his head in the sand for the last ten years, chancellor Darling spins the government pre-election line that the government will do "all it can" to avoid the "lost generation" of young people.

But manufacturing has been deliberately decimated, putting all the eggs in a financial services and media/creative basket now on its last legs. Cheap slave labour has been imported to do the dirty jobs to give the country a false sense of economic security. Billions of pounds have been squandered on useless non-job creation schemes.

The Orange Party's big concern is that away from all the worthy, worthless rhetoric, governments have a nasty habit of keeping a pool of workers on sedation on the dole.

Bosses too can keep a lid on a workforce scared stiff of losing their jobs, forcing pay cuts and forcing down working conditions, in return for fat profits and bonuses.

The usual lame excuse is trotted out blaming the rapid rise on the recession depression and a lack of jobs for school and college leavers. Ministers worth their salt should have seen it coming and made plans instead of sitting idly by and waiting for the jobless to be thrown on the scrapheap?

Hiding behind the spin of a global recession cuts no ice. The government is still trying to dig itself out of an economic hole of its own making.

What isn't needed is Sugar-coated apprenticeship gimmicks from a celebrity-obsessed government nor dumbed-down Mickey Mouse qualifications to push disillusioned youngsters into useless college courses to put off the dreaded day of a life on the dole.

Tories are driving home the point accusing ministers of making "empty promises" and driving home a message which chimes with the public.

Petty party politics apart, what is certain is that the country cannot and must not lose a whole generation of young people to unemployment and underachievement nor breed a culture where jobs are the exception and hand-outs are the rule.

Most Neet youngsters are likely to have low skills and a lack of real experience of real jobs in the real world.

Meaningful training, apprenticeships and work is the answer, not the current mishmash of half-baked uselessness 'courses' and non-jobs which just act as a stopgap before the dole queue beckons.

Time will tell whether the Tories will turn it around and whether the new People's 'Progressive' Party lives up to its name or lives down to the hype.

What is clear is that after more than a decade of deceit, whoever put the 'new' into New Labour should hang their heads in shame.

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Friday, April 24, 2009

New Labour Slave Labour?

Desperate and despairing youngsters could be forced out of the classroom and onto the streets as part of a half-baked slave labour plan to enlist them into community service. Working on Brown's chain gang is not cool for kids. 

Youngsters are having a hard time under New Labour, forced to stay on at school, taking worthless Mickey Mouse qualifications, without a cat in hell's chance of getting a job. 

Now help is at hand from the Supreme Leader, with a £146m community work scheme for England's 16 to 19-year-olds.

Fresh from his silly YouTube 'sensation' with a cunning political plan for MPs' expenses fiddles, the prime minister has once again upheld the finest traditions of our ancient democracy - by announcing a major community policy plan by podcast on his personal Downing Street web site. 

Launching the charm offensive in a tedious drone, Mr Cool said:  “I want everyone to have this opportunity and I want everyone to get involved.” Well bully for Brown. 

The pet project, run by 'smearing' Balls' stalinesque department for children, schools, families and back-stabbing, starting in September, includes "helping the elderly and the environment", leading to yet another useless piece of paper dressed up as a "professional qualification". 

But here's the rub: "It could eventually become a compulsory part of the school curriculum."

Forcing every youngster to do at least 50 hours of community service is all part of the Brown "good citizenship" drive, already trailed in the News of the Screws of all places, earlier this month. 

Good citizenship or indoctrination? Even Claire in the Community would be hard-pressed to dream up such a silly scheme.

Has anyone stopped to think this through? 

Forcing young people under 18 to do the work of the caring professions, unpaid, smacks of cheap labour. 

These are youngsters, under 18, going into the homes of the weak and vulnerable. Youngsters would be sent out onto the streets, cast adrift without a nod to a duty of care. 

What resources have been earmarked to back up the plan? How will hard-pressed teachers cope with the extra load of supervising and placing the youngsters without adequate and expensive support and resources. 

In the community, what extra resources will be given the social and community services already under fire as the care culture crumbles. 

People young and old will suffer in the recession depression. Extra help and training for young people is crucial. 

But where has the government been for the last ten booming bloomin' years? 

Turning a blind eye to the plight of the 16-19 year old Neets who are not in education, employment or training, they've been used as a pawn to  fiddle the dole figures. 

Young people need hope and they can get that through good, sound school education and the real chance of a proper job or meaningful further education at the end of it. 

But the plan is starting to unfold. Simple ply them with cheap supermarket booze and unrestricted licensing hours and let them sink into oblivion. Then round them up with a monumental hang-over, put them to work on the community chain gang and force them into slave labour to pay for their sins.

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