£2.6m training lure to ease jobs crisis

MORE than £2.6 million could be pumped into Oldham’s economy — if businesses train up people who have been unemployed for six months.

It is the latest Government drive to stop unemployment increasing further and rising to levels seen in the 1980s and 1990s.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced yesterday that employers would be given up to £2,500 for every person they train who has been unemployed for more than six month.

If every one of the 1,055 claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) for 26 weeks in Oldham were retrained, the Government would pay out £2.64 million to local businesses.

Speaking at a jobs summit, he promised that communities would not be “written off.”

Mr Brown said: “The best form of real help now is to equip people with the skills to help people into the jobs for the future.

“We know that any action we take has costs. But the biggest cost of all would be the cost of doing nothing.

“Failure to act now would mean a deeper and longer recession.”

Under the £500m plan, from April firms which recruit from the ranks of those who struggle to get off benefits will receive about £1,000— and up to £2,500 if they train them too.

The number of long term jobless across Oldham is 83 per cent lower than during the recession in the 1980s when 6,260 were registered out of work for more than six months. Officials were also keen to point out that there were 1,776 vacancies in the borough.