The Government is allocating £10 million to support the new back-to-work support measures for older workers announced in December.

Announcing the sum being allocated, Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told the audience at a conference* in London organised by the Social Market Foundation and TAEN, that the money was needed to help ensure that this recession did not create a ‘lost generation’ of older workers as had happened in the 1980s and 90s.

The extra support was justified for three main reasons, she explained:

• Once out of work, many older workers find it much harder to get back into work than younger adult age groups.
• The inter-relation with pensions of maintaining employment in the years leading up to retirement.
• The greater likelihood that long term unemployment would lead to some older workers dropping out of the labour market altogether – to their, their families’, communities’ and the national economy’s detriment.

Older workers, the Secretary of State said, were still immensely important to the economy and would become increasingly so as the current demographic trends continue.  Although much of the Government’s employment support measures are being focused on NEETs, older workers in areas of high unemployment are also benefiting from initiatives such as the Future Jobs Fund.

As reported previously, the new measures announced in the Building Britain’s Recovery: Achieving Full Employment White Paper published in December include: 

• Additional training for Jobcentre Plus Personal Advisers on working with 50+ jobseekers.
• Allowing extra time for Personal Advisers to work with older clients.
• Widening access for people aged 50+ to Work Trials.
• Providing additional specialist back-to-work help for certain categories of 50+ jobseekers.
• Additional work with employers to encourage them to recruit and retain older jobseekers and workers.
• Fast tracking of some 50+ jobseekers to Flexible New Deal support.

The measures come into effect from the start of April.

Responding to a question from TAEN, Yvette Cooper confirmed that the £10 million was ‘new money’ and could be released because unemployment had grown at a much lower rate and was now expected to reach a much lower peak than was originally feared. 

Other speakers at the conference included Lord David Freud, Conservative shadow minister for welfare reform and Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions spokesman who explained their parties’ age and employment / welfare reform policy approaches.

* The Who’s hurting and what’s helping? Tackling unemployment after the recession conference held on Monday 8 March was sponsored by Reed in Partnership.