Employment Schemes

Mrs. May
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of people have found work through (a) the day one offer, (b) the six month offer, (c) support for unemployed professionals and executives and (d) the flexible New Deal since that scheme was introduced.

Jim Knight
Government have taken decisive action during the global recession to ensure that every individual has the help and support they need to get into work. Over £5 billion has been made available to put in place a substantial package of support to help job seekers back to work, with a particular focus on support for young people.

Our measures are working. Unemployment is much lower than in previous recessions, inactivity is below what it was in 1997 and there are 400,000 fewer people unemployed today than experts were predicting at Budget 2009.

The number and proportion of people who have found work through the day one offer, support for newly unemployed professionals and executives, the volunteering and work focused training elements of the Six Month Offer and the Flexible New Deal is not yet available.

On 14 October 2009, we released the first set of official statistics on the number of people taking up elements of the Six Month Offer. These early data covered the period from April 2009 to July 2009 and showed that 5,990 people had entered employment using the Recruitment Subsidy and 1,460 people had become self-employed and claimed the Self-Employment Credit. Furthermore, provisional data for August 2009 showed that a further 1,500 people had used the Recruitment Subsidy and 920 people had taken up the Self Employment Credit.

The next quarterly statistical release for the Six Month Offer will be published in January 2010. We also expect to publish the first official statistics on the Flexible New Deal in spring 2010.