Have you heard of Neets? It sounds like, I don’t know, a new iPhone Fruit Ninja app or something.
What Neet actually stands for is teenagers not in education, employment or training. Anyway, there are lots of these Neets – more than a million in fact. And it’s a big problem.
Recently I read that the government is to pay firms to wake up out-of-work teenagers as part of a drive to get them into employment or education.
Under the scheme, announced by Nick Clegg, firms will receive up to £2,000 for every Neet they help – as long as the Neet is in full-time education, training or work six months later.
Another idea is to have former soldiers deliver motivational sessions with groups of Neets.
Initially I was a bit sceptical – but the more I thought about it the more it seemed to make sense.
At the moment, I work from home. That’s my set-up. But in the future – who knows?
Maybe I’ll have a sprawling business empire with offices all over the world. (He says…)
Whatever happens, I’ll be looking to take on some staff at some point. I might start by looking to hire an intern and take it from there.
So this idea got me interested. It’s easy to dismiss such government schemes as pie in the sky, but I think this could really work.
Many young people are disengaged. They want to work – they really do – but there’s something stopping them in some way. So a tailored, structured support programme like this could work.
And the companies involved get something out of it too. If successful, they get paid. More importantly though – they gain a valuable employee and they’ve played an important part in someone’s development.
So perhaps this scheme could work. So – neat idea, or not? What do you think?