Conservatives will create 25,000 new training places and jobs in West Yorkshire

On the day that official statistics reveal that UK has been in recession for six months longer than France, Germany and Japan, the Conservatives are setting out plans to get Britain working by creating 25,000 new training places or jobs in West Yorkshire, opening up new opportunities for people across the region.

 

 

We will create:

10,000 new apprenticeships in West Yorkshire

5,000 extra training places in West Yorkshire

4,000 new work pairings in West Yorkshire

2,000 new jobs in start-up businesses in West Yorkshire by abolishing the national insurance they pay on new employees.

1,500 new young apprenticeships in West Yorkshire

1,500 new opportunities for self-employment in West Yorkshire

450 new university places in West Yorkshire

These new jobs and training places will be funded by refocusing the Government’s employment and training programmes, including Train to Gain and the various New Deals, and reducing the benefits of Incapacity Benefit claimants found to be fit to work.

Our Approach

A Conservative government will launch a national Work Programme which:

Simplifies Labour’s numerous and piecemeal programmes into one single back-to-work programme for everyone who is unemployed.

• Includes the 2.6 million people claiming Incapacity Benefits currently excluded by Labour’s plans.
• Pays welfare-to-work providers according to whether they get jobseekers into sustainable employment of a year or more.

Recession Support. To provide extra opportunities to those looking for work, we have also announced:

Youth Action for Work – 100,000 additional apprenticeships and training places, 50,000 additional training places at FE colleges, and 50,000 work pairing places each year for two years.

• Work for Yourself – offering business mentors and loans to support self-employment and franchising as a route back into work.
• Work Together – a programme to connect people to volunteering opportunities in their area.
• Work Clubs – places where people can receive mentoring, skills training and help to find local job opportunities.
• 10,000 additional university places next year.
• New technical schools in England’s largest cities, as part of our plans for radical school reform.

Abolishing tax on new jobs.  As part of our plan to Get Britain Working, we will abolish tax on the jobs created by new businesses in the first two years of a Conservative Government.  Any new business started in the first two years of a Conservative Government will pay no Employer National Insurance on the first ten employees it hires during its first year.

The tax break will encourage new entrepreneurs and is predicted to generate around 60,000 additional jobs over two years.  Clear and simple rules will ensure that the jobs created are genuinely new. 

West Yorkshire’s Jobs Crisis under Labour

• Unemployment doubled. There are 68,275 people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in West Yorkshire, this has risen by 92 per cent since the start of the recession.
• Unemployment higher than 1997. The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance is almost 10,000 higher than in 1997 when Labour came to power, up by 16 per cent.
• Youth Unemployment.  There are 21,110 young people aged 18-24 claiming JSA in West Yorkshire, up by 87 per cent since the start of the recession. Youth unemployment is 35 per cent higher than in 1997.
• Long-term Unemployment. One in ten people claiming JSA have been on benefits for over a year.
• 7 people chasing every job. There are 7 people on JSA in for every vacancy advertised at Jobcentre Plus in West Yorkshire compared to 2 people per vacancy at the start of the recession.
• Almost 200,000 have no qualifications. 190,600 people in West Yorkshire have no qualifications.  
• 100,000 on Incapacity Benefits. There are 99,700 people claiming Incapacity Benefits or the new Employment and Support Allowance in West Yorkshire.
• Economic Inactivity. 305,200 people in West Yorkshire are economically inactive, 83,600 would like to work but don’t appear in the unemployment figures.

(All figures from www.nomisweb.co.uk)