A £60 million programme to support young people in Scotland into secure and sustainable employment has been launched.
The funding is from the European Commission’s Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) which aims to tackle high levels of youth unemployment across the European Union.
Dumfries and Galloway Council is set to receive £1,113,299 from this pot of funding. It will be used by the Council to invest in the DG Youth Guarantee.
Building the local economy is a Dumfries and Galloway Council priority. The Council has already invested heavily in growing the local economy and investing in the skills of the local workforce, particularly our young people, over the past three years. This money will be used to further invest in the delivery of programmes that are helping young people across the region to enter into further education, in accessing training and skill development or finding employment.
Chair of the Economy, Environment and Infrastructure committee, Colin Smyth, said “We’re pleased that this European funding of just over £1m has now been released. It will go towards part matching-funding from the council to support delivery of our DG Youth Guarantee – that’s a guarantee to every single young person in Dumfries and Galloway of a job, apprenticeship or place in education or training within 4 months of leaving school or becoming unemployed.
In particular, some of the funding will be used for the continuation of a young people’s wage incentive. This is a scheme whereby we subsidise the wages of a young person going into work. By adding this funding to the council’s own investment we will support employers to take on those young people furthest removed from the job market.
Since April 2013, our Council has supported 457 young people into employment through this initiative.
As a council we’ve made building the local economy our number one priority- and one of the reasons for that is our determination to end the scandal of high youth unemployment that plagued our region for so long. We are already seeing the work that we are doing starting to deliver results.
The rate of youth unemployment has actually halved in the last year within Dumfries and Galloway and we are now actually below both the UK and Scottish average. That is something that was unheard of until recently.
The continuation of this funding along with other support available through the council and our partners will ensure that we continue to support our most vulnerable people and build a strong local economy. It will build on initiatives that are being delivered that have already reduced the number of young people who are out of work.”
Should employers or jobseekers want more information on the initiative they should contact an employer engagement officer on 01387 245191.
Please see the following link for the latest youth unemployment figures
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/1946157410/subreports/ccadr_time_series/report.aspx?
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