BUDGET DAY: Funding pledge for 'socially useful' jobs for young people

The Chancellor has vowed to prevent the recession claiming a lost generation by promising to create 150,000 ‘socially useful' jobs for young people.

As part of a series of measures unveiled in his 2009 Budget today, Alistair Darling said the government would allocate funding for local authorities and third sector organisations to create 100,000 new jobs and a further 50,000 jobs in deprived areas. It is hoped that as many as 15,000 of these jobs will be in the green economy.

The package of support also included a guarantee to support 18 to 24-year-olds who have been unemployed for 12 months ‘to prevent them becoming detached from the labour market'.

Alice Phillips, project manager of the Learning Launchpad at the Young Foundation, which runs an investment fund for projects working with young people, said: ‘If this is simply about trying to keep young people busy, to keep them out of trouble through the economy, people aren't going to buy into it. This needs to be about creating jobs that have potential in the direction the economy is going.'

She added: ‘All the evidence suggests recessions have a serious impact on young people and that experiencing unemployment at a young age increases the likelihood of unemployment further down the line.'

Jane Ridderford, executive director of Global Generation, a social enterprise training young people in environmental technologies in central London, said: ‘It is important to find ways for people from different social backgrounds and different ages to work together. It is important we don't ghettoise any single group, which means ensuring we find ways to sit young people alongside experts and high technology.'

Elsewhere in his Budget, Darling also outlined plans for a £20m Hardship Fund to provide support to organisations that provide ‘frontline support' to disadvantaged people affected by the recession.