Terrified for my teenager

I have a 16 year old daughter. She is in her final year of school. What the hell is she going to be doing this time next year ?

She wants to work. She would be a good, reliable worker. In the olden days (when I were a lass), she would have had a few interviews, impressed someone with her sparkling personality (if not her academic achievements) and been taken on into a permanent job at intake level and worked her way up using her common sense and experience. She might have been funded for further study to enable her to move through promotion as she matured.

Where are those jobs now ? They don't exist. There are one million unemployed 16-24 year olds in this wonderful country of ours. These intake level jobs have been replaced by pretend ones. Major profit-making corporations can take these youngsters for 4 weeks or 6 months or whatever (depending on what new initiative "scheme" you get slotted into), get their labour for free or even get PAID for their privilege of the free labour. All while the youngster "works" for their Job Seekers Allowance). Who pays the JSA ? Where does the money come from to pay these "incentives" to big businesses ? Well, we do, of course. the government are busily taking it away from benefits, from pension pots, from the most vulnerable and needy people, to pay it to big corporations whose profits continue to soar, the executive directors of which still get their massive bonuses and pay rises.

So..what happens to the young person at the end of their "work experience" ? Is there a job for them ? Probably not. Why would there be when the next sucker is lined up to "work" for their JSA ?

It seemed a good idea didn't it, for the unemployed to get "job experience" ? I feel I have been duped with this one. What made sense for me would be if this useful work experience was in the charity sector, on community projects for example. Not for (massively) profit making organisations.

This seems like another example of the bigwigs safeguarding their own interests while destroying the futures and the prospects of the litttle person.

I hate it. It terrifies me. It terrifies a lot of people here http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1343731-WORKFARE-programmes-Does-anyone-have-any-experience-of-this

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Read all about Boycott Workfare and their campaign here, from meetings, handing out flyers and asking your Employer or Union to refuse to support the scheme.