Express & Star

Scheme helps those with barriers into work

A Government-backed jobs scheme has helped more than 36,000 unemployed in the West Midlands find lasting work.

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The Work Programme, launched in 2011, has changed how claimants with significant barriers to getting a job are supported off benefits and into work.

New figures show that 36,150 people in the West Midlands have already reached the six-month point in their new job, or three months for the hardest to help groups, with the vast majority continuing to work past that point.

See also: Number of Black Country youngsters not in employment, education or training falls.

In the West Midlands the number of jobseekers claiming benefits for more than 12 months has fallen by 12,300 over the past year, with the number of people claiming for more than two years also falling by 5,500 over the same period.

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Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan-Smith, said:

"Previously whole sections of society were abandoned - over a million people left to languish on benefits for a decade or more with zero job prospects.

See also: Help us tackle dole shame.

"Too many of the long-term jobless were simply ignored - a tragic waste of potential. That's why we introduced the Work Programme.

"It revolutionises the way we provide support to the those who are the hardest to help, supporting a move from dependency to independence and getting people into work so that they have financial security for the future.

The scheme has also contributed to the largest drop in long-term unemployment in Britain since 1998, new figures have revealed.

Latest employment figures show the British employment rate, at 73%, is also back up to the level seen before the recession with 30.61 million people in work.

See also: Express & Star fund gets the Black Country working.

Mr Duncan-Smith said: "The Work Programme is now helping more of the long-term unemployed than any programme before - and is one of the reasons we have just witnessed the largest annual fall in long-term unemployment in 16 years."

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