§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many of those that left school in 1980 in (a) the North-West, (b) Merseyside, (c) Ormskirk and (d) Kirkby, are still without a job; and what measures are planned to remedy this.
§ Mr. Jim LesterThe following table gives the numbers of unemployed people under 18 years of age who, at 9 October, had not been in employment since terminating full-time education. However, these figures will include any young people who left school before 1980 and had still not yet got a first job.
Kirby employment office area 473 Ormskirk employment office area 50 Merseyside Special Development Area 8,245 North West region 21,072 Work experience and training opportunities will be available for these young people under the youth opportunities programme, which the Secretary of State announced on 14 February would be expanded this year in order to admit over a quarter of a million young people throughout the country by next March.