£1 Billion Youth Contract Fund Finds Jobs for 16 to 24 Year Olds
As part of the Government's major blitz to tackle youth unemployment, a £1 billion injection of cash has been made to fund a scheme designed to give young people the right skills and experience to find the right job.
Spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the scheme is specifically targeting 16-24-year-olds to help them avoid hitting a brick wall in finding employment after leaving school or university. The government scheme works closely with both big and small businesses to encourage them to offer work placement positions in everything from IT jobs to retail and the services industries.
Some placements will be purely designed for the applicants to gain vital work experience that will further fuel opportunities in the future and help them improve the standing of their CV. Others will be paid placements, meaning that beneficiaries of the scheme will either be learning, or earning, or both, until they are in a better position to find something that suits them as a permanent job. A quick browse of a salary checker will let jobseekers get a better understanding of how much they can earn once they have the appropriate experience and can start on the employment path of their choice.
In total, the scheme should support over a quarter of a million work placements across the UK, spread across a whole range of industries. In addition, the Government will be making over 20,000 incentive payments to employers to help them create appropriate apprenticeships for students, school leavers and those seeking graduate jobs.
With so many businesses taking a more cautious approach to hiring new employees, graduates and other young people have been finding competition increasingly stiff for jobs that are appropriate to their skill set. While academic excellence may stand out on a CV, marking the applicant as a diligent student, actual hands-on working experience is becoming much more valuable for young jobseekers who want to stand out against the sea of competing candidates.
For young people who have been actively searching for a job for some time but remain unemployed, the Youth Contract scheme could be a real boon at a tough time. For Dawn Morgan, the work placement with FP Mailing in Dartford that the scheme provided has ended a worrying stint of unemployment. She said: "After five weeks of work experience I got offered a probationary three month contract. Since then I've now been given a permanent contract.
"It's reassuring that I've now got a job and I'm doing ok for myself. It's a confidence boost."
While often providing only the first step towards finding the right job, relevant work experience is fast becoming one of the most important aspects that an employer looks for in an applicant's CV before deciding whether to bring them forward to the interviewing stage. It's important for students and graduates understand how useful this experience can be in providing them with a stepping stone to their ideal job.
Image Source: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1402099
Spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the scheme is specifically targeting 16-24-year-olds to help them avoid hitting a brick wall in finding employment after leaving school or university. The government scheme works closely with both big and small businesses to encourage them to offer work placement positions in everything from IT jobs to retail and the services industries.
Some placements will be purely designed for the applicants to gain vital work experience that will further fuel opportunities in the future and help them improve the standing of their CV. Others will be paid placements, meaning that beneficiaries of the scheme will either be learning, or earning, or both, until they are in a better position to find something that suits them as a permanent job. A quick browse of a salary checker will let jobseekers get a better understanding of how much they can earn once they have the appropriate experience and can start on the employment path of their choice.
In total, the scheme should support over a quarter of a million work placements across the UK, spread across a whole range of industries. In addition, the Government will be making over 20,000 incentive payments to employers to help them create appropriate apprenticeships for students, school leavers and those seeking graduate jobs.
With so many businesses taking a more cautious approach to hiring new employees, graduates and other young people have been finding competition increasingly stiff for jobs that are appropriate to their skill set. While academic excellence may stand out on a CV, marking the applicant as a diligent student, actual hands-on working experience is becoming much more valuable for young jobseekers who want to stand out against the sea of competing candidates.
For young people who have been actively searching for a job for some time but remain unemployed, the Youth Contract scheme could be a real boon at a tough time. For Dawn Morgan, the work placement with FP Mailing in Dartford that the scheme provided has ended a worrying stint of unemployment. She said: "After five weeks of work experience I got offered a probationary three month contract. Since then I've now been given a permanent contract.
"It's reassuring that I've now got a job and I'm doing ok for myself. It's a confidence boost."
While often providing only the first step towards finding the right job, relevant work experience is fast becoming one of the most important aspects that an employer looks for in an applicant's CV before deciding whether to bring them forward to the interviewing stage. It's important for students and graduates understand how useful this experience can be in providing them with a stepping stone to their ideal job.
Image Source: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1402099
