A Welsh Government programme which Labour wanted to replicate across the UK to get youngsters into employment has been closed.
Jobs Growth Wales offered unemployed people aged between 16 and 24 a chance to get employment with the Welsh Government paying their wages via its own and European Union funding.
The scheme came to end last month when EU funding ran out.
Labour politicians in Cardiff and Westminster have previously hailed the programme as being hugely successful. In March, Labour leader Ed Miliband said that if his party was elected as the next UK Government it would use Jobs Growth Wales as a model for similar UK-wide scheme.
The Welsh Government said the scheme had been a “fantastic success” and that a new Jobs Growth Wales Scheme was being developed to be launch later this year.
South East Wales AM William Graham is the Conservative Shadow Minister for Business.
He said: “This was Labour’s flagship Welsh employment scheme – trumpeted by both Ed Miliband and Labour’s Welsh First Minister.
“Now it’s effectively scrapped. You couldn’t make it up. It’s yet more evidence of a Labour party that’s entirely lost on the economy.
“Brushing a ‘key policy’ aside in Wales will give voters absolutely no hope that Labour can be trusted with our economy.
“It’s an embarrassing admittance that all was not what it seemed and Labour talk of the scheme’s huge success has been rubbished.”
He added: “Labour’s Ed Miliband should front up and explain both why his Welsh party leader has pulled the plug on their key scheme and what policies he has for job creation going forward.
“If Labour don’t like Jobs Growth Wales anymore, presumably that means it’s off the cards for Ed in England.
“It’s clear that this scheme wasn’t the success Labour claimed it to be – and taxpayers now deserve answers.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said “”The original programme was designed to create and fill 12,000 jobs and to date it has helped create over 17,000 job opportunities and fill almost 15,000 of these vacancies for young people aged 16 to 24.
“In doing so it has made a significant contribution to reducing youth unemployment right across Wales. It has also helped businesses to grow and expand.
“The European Social Fund budget for the 2007 to 2013 programme came to an end on 31 March and we have already begun work on the successor programme.
“Subject to approval within the new European Social Fund for 2014 to 2020 we are aiming to launch the new Jobs Growth Wales programme in the first quarter of this financial year.”
I’m just curious whether the Conservatives in Wales would have a better or similar scheme if they were in power?
I’m just curious whether the Conservatives in Wales would have a better or similar scheme if they were in power?
Left to Billy Graham AM and his Conservative party, in Wales and in the UK., such schemes and corresponding funding from the EU would`nt even exist.
Or is this one element of our EU membership that the Conservatives would NOT re-nogatiate away?. They really do want it both ways, but, that is possible I suppose as Cameron has had a lot of practice facing both ways. Breaking one promise after another, and taking both supporters and voters for fools.
Plus his own party members and backbenchers whom he hates and annoys at all given opportunities.
Left to Billy Graham AM and his Conservative party, in Wales and in the UK., such schemes and corresponding funding from the EU would`nt even exist.
Or is this one element of our EU membership that the Conservatives would NOT re-nogatiate away?. They really do want it both ways, but, that is possible I suppose as Cameron has had a lot of practice facing both ways. Breaking one promise after another, and taking both supporters and voters for fools.
Plus his own party members and backbenchers whom he hates and annoys at all given opportunities.
After a century (that’s 100 years!) of socialist governance in south Wales the electorate still believe that there is no alternative. High unemployment, poverty, scruffy towns – all good eh? Sad, very sad that people don’t learn.
It appears Clive that the Welsh do not like change, they like to moan and whine about how bad things are and compare everything in Wales to what’s going on in England, but they’re not prepared to do anything about it, yes you’re absolutely correct – it’s sad that people don’t learn, Wales probably has yet another hundred years of socialism to look forward to.
After a century (that’s 100 years!) of socialist governance in south Wales the electorate still believe that there is no alternative. High unemployment, poverty, scruffy towns – all good eh? Sad, very sad that people don’t learn.
It appears Clive that the Welsh do not like change, they like to moan and whine about how bad things are and compare everything in Wales to what’s going on in England, but they’re not prepared to do anything about it, yes you’re absolutely correct – it’s sad that people don’t learn, Wales probably has yet another hundred years of socialism to look forward to.
Jobs Growth Wales is a good scheme to give young people the necessary work experience they need when looking for full time employment, but essentially it is simply temporary, short term, low paid work which is subsidised by the Welsh Government using European money and provides companies with cheap labour for a few months, so if this were a Tory or a Plaid scheme then Labour would be making the claim that it is merely a scheme that exploits young people by forcing them to work for the minimum wage with little or no hope of a real job at the end of it. How many millions has been put into Jobs Growth Wales and how many people are now actually employed in a full time position as a direct result of Jobs Growth Wales? Wales needs real investment in private sector business not a short term rehashed youth opportunities program, but Welsh Labour are anti business and anti profit, they want to own and run everything to keep the masses in the level of deprivation that they have become accustomed to.
Jobs Growth Wales is a good scheme to give young people the necessary work experience they need when looking for full time employment, but essentially it is simply temporary, short term, low paid work which is subsidised by the Welsh Government using European money and provides companies with cheap labour for a few months, so if this were a Tory or a Plaid scheme then Labour would be making the claim that it is merely a scheme that exploits young people by forcing them to work for the minimum wage with little or no hope of a real job at the end of it. How many millions has been put into Jobs Growth Wales and how many people are now actually employed in a full time position as a direct result of Jobs Growth Wales? Wales needs real investment in private sector business not a short term rehashed youth opportunities program, but Welsh Labour are anti business and anti profit, they want to own and run everything to keep the masses in the level of deprivation that they have become accustomed to.