Earlier this year, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced:

“Jobseekers who find themselves unemployed for more than six months are now guaranteed more support, so they can get back into work.”

The sum of £0.5bn is to be invested over two years is to provide extra funding for Jobcentre Plus to provide every job seeker who has been out of work for six months more intensive and personalised support, the package will include giving individuals access to:

• “Employers’ Golden Hellos”: incentives of up to £2500 paid to employers to recruit and train unemployed people
• New training places: extra funding for training places to help unemployed people get new skills to maximise their chances of getting jobs from the 500,000 vacancies in the economy
• Work-focused volunteering options: opportunities to volunteer to help people back into work habits
• Help to set up a business – advice on creating a business plan, plus funding for the first months of trading

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said:

“We will do everything we can to prevent the global recession turning into a global depression; prevent short term unemployment turning into long term unemployment; and to prevent losing your job meaning losing your home.

That’s why we say ‘invest not cut’. And that doing nothing doesn’t help.  It hurts more today, and worse still, it harms us for the future. For we say – invest to extend real help now to those who lose their jobs. And my message is simple: we won’t give up on you; but in turn you must not give up on work, on skills, and on training.”

This extra support is in addition to the £1.3 billion already being invested so that anyone who loses their job can access help and support on the first day they become unemployed and make a claim.

Responding to plans announced by Nissan earlier this week to create hundreds of new jobs in a £200 million investment to build batteries for electric cars, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

‘This is an excellent initiative. It combines active industrial policy and environmental transformation, pointing the way to the kind of economy we will need to build after the recession.

The old debate that says that there is only a choice between leaving it to the market or picking winners is now dead and buried.’