Future Jobs Fund and Backing Young Britain

Future Jobs Fund and Backing Young Britain
In July the Government made two important announcements to help combat unemployment brought on by the global economic downturn, especially amongst young people.

Backing Young Britain
The first is the launch of a national campaign to encourage employers all over the country to do everything possible to give every young person help to find a job or training or work skills and experience.

In the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people were abandoned without support. Many communities had a generation lost to worklessness and bore the scars of long-term unemployment for years. To ensure that this never happens again and that every young person gets help to find a job or training or work skills and experience, the Government is asking businesses, charities and local authorities to back young Britain by committing to at least one of the following:

1. becoming a volunteer mentor for school or university leavers to help them find their feet in the jobs market;

2. providing work experience places, volunteering places or a work trial to help young people learn about work, make contacts and fill their CV;

3. create a new internship for 18 year olds and non graduates to give them a chance to prove themselves;

4. offering an internship for a graduate;

5. providing an apprenticeship for 16-24 year olds;

6. bidding for one of the 100,000 jobs for young people in the Government’s Future Jobs Fund;

7. joining a Local Employment Partnership to make sure my job vacancies are advertised to local unemployed people.

The aim of this campaign is to get as many employers as possible to commit to taking at least one of the actions to help young people.

For more information, or to Back Young Britain, go to: www.hmg.gov.uk/backingyoungbritain


Future Jobs Fund
The £1billion Future Jobs Fund forms a key aspect of the Backing Young Britain campaign, and aims to create 150,000 jobs, aimed primarily at 18 – 24 year olds who have been out of work for a year. The first jobs are expected to be available in October.

Bids for the Future Jobs Fund are still being received and are assessed on a monthly basis. The Government is calling on every local authority, voluntary sector and social enterprise organisation to bring forward their ideas of jobs they could offer - they want people to come to them with proposals and they hope that bidders can match funds, alongside the £6,700 the Government will provide. There were 117 successful bidders by the 29 July 2009, however, these bids were just the first and there is still funding for another 100,000 jobs.

For more information, and to find out who the successful bidders are, go to: www.dwp.gov.uk/futurejobsfund

In July the Government made two additional key announcements:

• 47,000 innovative new jobs for young people and the long term unemployed from the Future Jobs Fund which will ultimately create 150,000 jobs across the country.

• Funding for 20,000 internships. Half of those will be for 18-21 year olds who haven’t been to university.