§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will seek powers to promote and to finance schemes whereby school leavers who remain unemployed may give voluntary public service.
§ Mr. John FraserI have been asked to reply.
Employment prospects for school leavers and other young people in the immediate future will depend largely on the degree of success achieved in maintaining the highest general level of employment which is consistent with anti-inflationary measures. Specific steps to stimulate employment include financial assistance under the Industry Act 1972, the creation and preservation of jobs through the new National Enterprise Board, the doubling of the regional employment premium and the creation of Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies.
The careers service provided by local education authorities will give school leavers and other young people all possible help in finding employment, and the Manpower Services Commission is also giving urgent consideration to ways of improving employment and training opportunities and has already announced a scheme to create 7,000 extra industrial training places, to help redundant apprentices, sandwich course students and school leavers.
The employment of young people on local "community" projects is the 69W method used by the existing Community Industry scheme, but the young employees of Community Industry receive wages and my right hon. Friend has no plans to promote voluntary unpaid employment of this type.
§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) how many children left school in the city of Leicester at Easter; how many and what percentage of those school leavers have been placed in employment and how many remain unemployed; and how many and what percentage have continued their studies;
(2) how many children in the city of Leicester left school at the end of the summer term; how many and what percentage of them have been placed in employment; how many and what percentage remain unemployed; and how many and what percentage are expected to be continuing their studies.
§ Mr. John FraserI have been asked to reply.
About 1,600 young people were eligible to leave school at Easter. Of these just under 800 sought employment and the remainder, approximately 52 per cent., continued with their studies. A further 5,500 will be eligible to leave school this summer but it is not yet known how many of them will remain in full-time education.
On 9th June—the latest date for which statistics are available—99 school leavers were registered as unemployed; statistics do not define the date of leaving school, but it is estimated that 80 of these were Easter leavers and that fewer than 10 per cent. of the Easter leavers are still unemployed. The number of summer term leavers registered as unemployed will be included in the July statistics to be published later this week.