Londoners aged 18-24 will have to do three months of unpaid work in order to continue claiming social security benefits in a new scheme announced by London’s mayor Boris Johnson, however there are claims that rather than helping young people back into work, the scheme exploits their free labor.
Aimed at combating youth unemployment and offering “intensive help” to young people with no experience of paid work, the scheme states that anyone who refuses to do an unpaid internship for 13 weeks will lose their unemployment benefits worth 56 pounds a week.
According to the “joint pilot” scheme created by Mayor Johnson and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), up to 6,000 young Londoners across the capital will be expected to do unpaid work if they have not worked for six months.
The scheme is being funded by the European Social Fund and is the third project to be launched in order to tackle growing youth unemployment and a “welfare culture” of dependency on state hand-outs. According to the DWP’s latest figures 5.9 million Britons of working age are now on benefits.
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