NCJ Number
216901
Date Published
2006
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This chapter describes the effectiveness of the New Deal for Young People (NDYP) program initiative which offers young people sustaining and meaningful alternatives to the destructiveness of long-term unemployment.
Abstract
This chapter observes that unemployed young people are confronted with the toughest benefits program in the United Kingdom and presents a critical review of the NDYP on the basis of hard evidence and theoretical analysis. Without the willingness of the government to exercise direct regulation over employers, and the labor market in general, the prospect of the NDYP getting young people off unemployment, into sustainable work, and offering reasonable prospects for reducing youth crime, remains doubtful. New Labor has seemingly taken the unprecedented step of moving outside of the government’s conventional concern in this arena and a key example of this has been the handling of the NDYP. NDYP was promoted as a radical innovation for addressing long-term youth unemployment thus reducing youth crime through better training and employment opportunities. However, under New Labor influence NDYP will continue to provide young people with an alternative to unemployment by leading them into low quality training and poor employment placement resulting in increasingly informal and unstable modes of existence. Conversely, it is argued that modern techniques of government are capable of reconciling the contradictions between a market-led strategy aimed at delivering continuing economic growth and wider considerations of social justice for unemployed young workers. References