EMPLOYMENT Minister and MP for Oxford East Andrew Smith today urged Oxfordshire's leading employers to take up the challenge of the Government's New Deal and help young people out of a life on state hand-outs and into the world of work, writes Chris Koenig.

Mr Smith was speaking at a business breakfast at Cowley-based motor parts and logisitics firm Unipart hosted by the company's chief executive John Neill.

Following a meeting at 11 Downing Street with Chancellor Gordon Brown, Mr Neill has committed Unipart to work with the Employment Service and non-Government organisations in Oxfordshire to help create a blueprint for the initial "gateway" process of the deal designed to help young people aged between 18 and 24 who have been out of work for six months.

Mr Smith said that young people will learn that employers are "on your side" in the business of moving from welfare to work through an advertising campaign which the government is about to launch nationwide.

Under the New Deal, financed by Labour's £3.5bn windfall tax on utilities like gas and electricity privatised under the Conservative government, employers will receive £60 a week per young person they take on for six months plus £750 towards training. There are now 350 qualifying young people in Oxfordshire who will be invited to sign up for the New Deal on April 6.

Unipart has agreed to take on nine employees under the deal and other Oxfordshire employers signing on include Marks & Spencer, Rover Group, Oxford University Press and food distributor Tibbett and Britten.

Young unemployed people , who will lose benefit if they fail to sign up to the New Deal, have four options: a subsidised New Deal job; work with the Environmental Task Force; work in the voluntary sector; a return to full-time education.

The scheme is being implemented in Oxfordshire by the Employment Service. Further information from Carol Pratley, tel 01865 445003.

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