All 18 to 21-year-olds who are unemployed for more than six months will have to undertake compulsory work experience, a traineeship or a full-time community work placement.
Unemployed teenagers who leave school without basic English and maths will be forced to go back to the classroom for 16 hours a week or lose their benefits under new rules announced by George Osborne. The chancellor said he wanted to get rid of a “culture of worklessness” among some school-leavers, as he unveiled a package of measures to get some of Britain’s one million unemployed young people into jobs.
Among the changes, Osborne said he would gave a tax break to companies that hire under-21s, create another 20,000 apprenticeships, fund more training for 16 to 17-year-olds and bring in elements of an “earn or learn” system to stop 18-year-olds going straight on to the dole. Read more
