Posted on 2013-10-28 | 03:09

Roger has written to Esther McVey MP, the Minister of State for Employment, to criticise the lack of support available for his constituents who are young, often well-qualified, and desperate to work and make a contribution to society.

Roger was recently contacted by a highly-qualified law graduate who was told to get a job in retail by her local jobcentre. He said: “What is the point of encouraging bright, ambitious young people from poor backgrounds to rack up enormous debts by attending university, if we then tell them to abandon all hope and get a job in retail after they finish studying?”

Roger’s constituents, who include Cait Reilly, the University of Birmingham geology graduate who was forced to work for free at a Poundland store, desperately want to work and are happy to do unpaid work if it will help their career. Despite Government rhetoric about the luxury of a life on benefits, young people in Birmingham Hall Green who receive JSA struggle to afford smart clothes to wear to interviews, and some cannot afford to purchase a computer to help with their job search.

Roger says: “Rather than being ‘shirkers’, my constituents and many others on JSA are strivers whose efforts are going unrewarded because of the structural lack of demand in the job market, which the Government seem to be doing little to address. It’s a lot easier to get somebody off the books and give the unemployment statistics a rosy glow if you unilaterally withdraw support from those areas of employment where people have genuinely invested time and commitment to build a career, isn’t it?

Why will the Government not bring in schemes to support young, ambitious people into work rather than allowing their talents, and the contribution they could make to the UK, to be wasted?”