Richard Plaster

TRAINING schemes to get Jersey young people off the unemployment register and into work are under scrutiny tomorrow.

Skills Jersey, which was set up by the States last year, is asking for £2.8 million from the stabilisation fun as part of a £44 million economic stimulus package to help Islanders to work their way through the recession.

According to figures from Social Security, there are currently around 120 out-of-work teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18 on income support and a further 228 aged between 19 and 24 who are also unable to find work and are claiming funding from Social Security.

This number is expected to rise again in the summer, when another 1,000 young people leave full-time education, either as graduates or as school leavers. Richard Plaster, who chairs Skills Jersey, said that graduates who might in the past have stayed on to work in the UK were less likely to find employment there and were more likely to come home as a consequence.