5 October 2010
The government programme to find work for unemployed people is in jeopardy because there are not enough available jobs, the Institute for Public Policy Research has said.
The Work Programme is a £3bn fund for private and third sector providers to help long-term unemployed people into work. However, the programme’s success depends on the availability of work, the IPPR says, and its analysis shows that there are five people chasing every vacancy. It adds that long-term unemployment has doubled in the past two years to 797,000 while the number of vacancies has fallen to 467,000.
Long-term unemployment will be higher by the end of 2011, the IPPR says, hitting 875,000, with 4.6 people going for every vacancy.
The think-tank’s report – Now it’s personal – calls for the localisation of the welfare-to-work system. It says that welfare budgets should be devolved to groups of councils led by Local Enterprise Partnerships.
IPPR director Nick Pearce said: ‘Our analysis shows that the government’s Work Programme could struggle, not because it is ill-conceived, but because there simply aren’t enough jobs out there. It was hard enough to get the long-term unemployed into work during the boom years. Now, because of the downturn, there are far fewer vacancies, so it’s going to be harder still.
‘A strategy for growth which creates jobs is part of the answer. But our ideas show the best possible welfare-to-work service can also play an important role. What is needed is a much more local, flexible system which can offer a highly personal service to people who’ve been out of work for a long time.’
