Youth jobs boosted by rising economy

The government’s New Deal scheme to get young people into work has
cost up to £6,000 per person and almost a third of
participants cannot be traced, according to a report from the
Commons’ Public Accounts Committee.

The report finds that, while the government has met its target of
getting 250,000 under-25 year olds into work by March 2002, many
participants would have found jobs in the growing economy
anyway.

More information is also needed on the impact of the scheme on
ethnic minority groups, who gain less from it than their white
counterparts, the report says.

But chief executive of the National Youth Agency Tom Wylie said the
New Deal scheme had been successful in reducing both long-term
unemployment and employability by boosting general skill levels.