Petition New Deal Work Placements

The New Deal work placements schemes offer a chance for young people and the long-term unemployed to gain valuable experience of work and get experience and opportunities working for good UK employers, but have been criticised as supplying cheap, or free labour, to exploitative employers, not giving any long-term benefit to the people taking up these opportunities and not reducing overall Government spending on the unemployed.

We, the undersigned, call on the Government to restrict employers eligible to take part in these schemes to those that

(i) pay UK taxes on greater than 50% of their profits,

(ii) offer at least 5% of placements a job lasting more that one year with a salary of at least the UK living wage (currently £7.45), and

(iii) require employers to give training resulting in a recognised certificate of training relevant to the employment, at the employers expense including any travel costs, for at least 1 days per week.