§ Mr. DevlinTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the progress of the job interview guarantee scheme.
§ Mr. Lee[holding answer 20 June 1989]: The job interview guarantee will link the assistance already available through jobclubs and the employment service with new measures to enable longer term unemployed people to take job vacancies.
These will include a job preparation course, tailored to meet employers' specific needs and "work trials", which offer short periods of work experience with potential employers to unemployed people while they remain on benefit. Where people need training for the vacancies on offer, training under employment training tailored to the employer's needs may be made available.
In return, employers will enter into agreements with the employment service under which they guarantee to interview unemployed people who have taken one of these options for the vacancies they have available.
The cities in which the job interview guarantee scheme will be piloted have now been chosen. They are:
- Dundee
- Glasgow
- Newcastle
- Sunderland
- Leeds
- Lower Don Valley (Sheffield/Rotherham)
- Manchester
- Salford
- Liverpool
- Birmingham
- Wolverhampton
- Nottingham
- Leicester
- London-Spitafields
- Docklands
- Southwark/Lewisham
- Bristol
- Plymouth (Davenport)
- Cardiff
- Merthyr Tydfil
The scheme will be targeted on selected disadvantaged areas within these cities.
Preparatory work in these locations is under way, and it is hoped that the first agreements will be made within the next few weeks.