• Young people – commitment to abolish long-term youth unemployment by introducing ‘tougher Day One Work Requirements’ for those on benefits. Unemployed will be required to work for their benefit doing community work. This builds on previous pilots in London that did not work.
• As part of this, JSA will be replaced with a time-limited Youth Allowance for those aged 18-21, paid in return for either learning or workfare. Only paid for six months.
• Also commitment to end automatic entitlement to HB if you’re 18-21
• Welfare:
• Freeze benefits for two more years – with disability benefits and pensioners exempt
• Introduce Universal Credit
• Lower benefit cap to £23,000

• Double spending on youth services
• Free education for all
• Stop the spread of academies and free schools
• No to workfare, yes to workplace democracy
• More training for young unemployed people
• Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage

We reject workfare and forcing unemployed people into unsuitable jobs by removing benefits. We support moves towards workplace democracy and a greater role for mutual models like worker co-operatives.

We would offer Green workforce training and an environmental community programme, including training courses for jobs in energy conservation and renewable energy. We would spend £5bn on creating 350,000 training places, and offering opportunities to 700,000 unemployed people, in particular the young unemployed.

We support a National Minimum Wage that is a Living Wage, at 60% of net national average earnings (currently this would mean a minimum wage of £8.10 per hour). We would work towards pay ratios, ensuring that the maximum wage in any organisation is no more than ten times the minimum wage in that organisation.

• Compulsory Jobs Guarantee for young people unemployed for more than twelve months, and for older people unemployed for more than two years.
• The Labour Party pledges to scrap exploitative and insecure zero hour contracts that disproportionately affect young people between the ages of 16 and 25. Employers will have to offer regular hours to employees who have worked with them for three months and over and compensation will be paid to employees who have their shifts cancelled suddenly and unexpectedly.
• A shortage of relevant skills, training and education is one of the reasons why young people are increasingly being turned away by businesses.
• Labour will ensure that every young person who gets the grades, are provided with guaranteed apprenticeships and training schemes to ensure they are equipped with the necessary skills and training needed by prospect employers.
• Labour will also provide six month starter jobs for young people who have been unemployed for up to a year. These jobs will provide training and experience for young people who lack the necessary skills and experience needed to find work. These starter jobs will allow young people to continue claiming their job seekers allowance benefits. However, refusal to accept jobs and training will result in the recanting of jsa benefits. Labour will not allow young people to claim benefits without showing readiness to work and be employed.

NIACE is the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, the national voice for lifelong learning. We campaign for the personal, social and economic benefits from lifelong learning, work to improve peoples’ experience of the adult learning and skills system, and fight for all adults (young and old) to have opportunities throughout their lives to participate in and benefit from learning. Young people in learning and work are shown to be happier, healthier and better paid than those who are not, while being out of learning and work while young, particularly for a sustained period is shown to have negative and long term consequences. NIACE is particularly committed to challenging inequalities around access to learning and work, empowering under-represented groups to participate and fulfil their potential.

• We’ve been focusing on the quantity of apprenticeships. We need now to focus on improving quality and widen access – we have made policy proposals around an Apprentice Charter quality mark and around the need for part time Apprenticeship opportunities.
• We need to do more to develop progression pathways to high quality learning opportunities. Our work around STEM Traineeships, suggest that we should take more sector-based and local approaches to this.
• Continued investment in higher education, apprenticeships and other forms of formal education is essential, but is a disproportionate focus of government spending. We need to place greater priority on informal learning and holistic support for the most disadvantaged young people.

The Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG), a national charity that helps young ethnic minority people to succeed in education, employment and entrepreneurship, has published today it’s Campaign for a fairer Britain - A Manifesto For Ending Racial Inequality In Britain.

The manifesto urges all political parties to make Britain fairer and wants the next Government to implement 17 practical actions covering education, the labour market, enterprise and criminal justice.

Key actions relating to youth unemployment include:

• Require Ofsted to take a more robust approach to evaluating whether schools meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and the needs of ethnic minority pupils
• Set equality targets for apprenticeships. At least 15% of all new apprentices should be ethnic minority.
• Consult with young people on the rebranding of ‘jobcentres’ (maybe to new careers and employment centres) so that they are places that young people feel positive about and can receive the personalised support and encouragement that they need.
• Provide all young people 16-24 with a mentor that’s in employment.
• Ensure college and university students have access to quality work experience opportunities in the occupational areas that they hope to work succeed in.
• Ensure that apprenticeships pay a living wage and provide sustainable employment.

• Tomorrow’s People believes that all young people have abilities, and that all young people at some point will need support in realising and acting on their talents.
• We therefore believe that all young people should have access to support that is right for them so that they can properly realise their potential, become ambitious and flourish.

• For a young person to be supported in realising their talent, Tomorrow’s People believes that this is achieved (in the main) when a young person has a trusted individual in their life.
• We therefore believe that all young people should have access to a trusted individual who can provide advice and guidance about their transition from school to work.

• Tomorrow’s People believes that earlier intervention is vital to support young people who are at risk of becoming NEET. Our research with Bristol University suggests that support during school-to-work transition should begin in Year 9
  (i.e. 13 – 14 year olds). Intervening later risks missing important decisions that young people make
• We therefore believe that young people in Year 9 and who are considered to be at risk of becoming NEET should receive intervention that is appropriate and suitable to their situation, so that remain and flourish in education.

• What young people want to do
• Have the correct skills for work
• Having a good range of options to choose from

• To continue to provide support for all enterprise societies and to have a enterprise society in all Further Education Colleges in England
• To reform the degree system to take into account extra curricular activities and have a less exam, tick box nature of education
• To continue the low tax, pro-business investment, including investing in infrastructure, fast broadband in rural communities and schools and expand coding education
• To provide facilitates for ambitious students to continue with enterprise in a softer environment, for example being given incubation space post graduation over summer, to ease the transition

Getting Outreach right – Finding the young people that really need our provision and signposting them towards what is appropriate and high impact for them is crucial

Collaborative working at a local and national level – Partnership working is key to finding the right solutions and progressions for young people. At the Trust we’re working hard to know the provision from our neighbours to support cross referrals and build the journey for the young people. At a national level we’re working with large employers to leverage opportunities for young people. No one organisation has all the answers we must work collaboratively
   

Flipping the odds in the favour of the YP at interview stage – Through an initiative that we’ve called Get Hired we bring employers and young people together and place the initial onus on the employer to appeal to young people prior to an initial first interview with no application form barriers

Opportunity and enthusiasm – At the Trust we see our role to build confidence, enthusiasm and positivity within young people’s lives so they are in a position to take advantage the opportunities internally and externally that we offer and facilitate. It is this combination of opportunity and enthusiasm that we feel is crucial to getting young people into employment.

Our aspiration is to make NEETS history by the end of the next Parliament, by:

1. Easing the transition from school to work (e.g. improving progression planning in schools; getting employers engaged in the classroom, making job-search services more young people friendly)
2. Providing greater support for disadvantaged young people (e.g. monitoring the progression of students benefiting from pupil premium post-education; including in payment by results contracts extra funding for working with those furthest from the labour market);
3. Making the skills needed to be ‘Ready for Work’ more central within school (e.g. strengthing already patchy careers guidance to ensure young people are well informed; ensuring employability skills are as well embedded as numeracy and literacy);
4. Encouraging employers to provide effective on-the-job training opportunities for young people (e.g. LAs driving labour market partnerships; support for smaller employers to take on Apprentices)
5. Driving clearer accountability within government (e.g. across departmental strategy; senior ministerial oversight)

Lib Dems – http://www.libdems.org.uk/read-the-full-manifesto

The Found Generation: Manifesto for Youth Employment - http://thefoundgeneration.co.uk/our-publications/).

Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG) – Full version - Campaign for a fairer Britain - A Manifesto For Ending Racial Inequality In Britain.

Conservative’s full manifesto: https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto

Green’s full manifesto: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/2015-manifesto.html

Labour’s full manifesto: http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto/all