Jobs should be here first

Concern was expressed by Plaid Cllr Mari Dafis at a meeting of Carmarthenshire County Council about the government’s strategy for putting people on training programmes. Cllr Dafis felt that if we didn’t know which jobs were coming and when, there was a danger that we would either provide the wrong training, or else that the training would be out of date before it could be put into practice.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Dafis said, “I very much welcome the government’s expansion of the Modern Apprenticeships Scheme for instance, and I am delighted that the county council is endeavouring to make more use of it. But unless we know that there are going to be permanent jobs available at the end of this sort of scheme, there is a danger that the schemes just hide the true extent of unemployment.

“For the young people concerned, it can be very frustrating spending time learning skills which they are never able to apply. It’s almost as bad when they complete their training and then find that it’s so long before they get a job that the training is out of date, and further training is needed.”