Labour today condemned a minister who said some young people lacked the “grit” needed to get a job.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne claimed comments by Nick Hurd, the minister for civil society, showed the Government was “completely out of touch” on how to tackle unemployment.
In an interview Mr Hurd, the son of former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd, said: “What we see in survey after survey is employers saying qualifications are important.
“But that just as important to us are so-called soft-skills, character skills, the ability to get on with different people, to articulate yourself clearly, confidence, grit, self-control, these kind of qualities, and they are saying we are not seeing enough of this in kids coming out of school.”
In a speech in London today, Mr Byrne said the number of young people not in education, employment or training had risen to about 1.09 million and highlighted low take-up rates for youth contracts, the costs of implementing universal credit, problems in the delivery of work capability assessments by contractor Atos and rising fraud.
He also claimed “chaos” at the Department for Work and Pensions over the delivery of welfare reforms was landing the taxpayer with a £1.4 billion bill. A Tory source said: “This is a last-ditch attempt by Liam Byrne to keep his job.”
The Cabinet Office said Mr Hurd was not “criticising” young people’s determination to find work “but responding to what employers are telling us about the ever-more competitive workplace”.
