Young women '˜let down by job centres'

Young Women’s Trust is calling for more flexible and personalised support for young women looking for work as only 19 per cent of young women who visited a job centre in the last year said it helped them find a job.

According to the Work It Out report, 44 per cent said Jobcentre Plus had not given them useful information about work and training opportunities.

Dr Carole Easton, chief executive of Young Women’s Trust, said: “Young women are more likely to be out of education, employment and training than young men.

“They want to work and be financially independent but they aren’t getting the necessary support. It is clear from this report that job centres need to change.”

The charity is concerned that job centres are driving young women away and alienating them from claiming the temporary financial support they need.

The vast majority of young women surveyed were negative about their experiences of job centres with 59 per cent describing their time at the job centre as “humiliating” and 68 per cent said it was “stressful”.

The survey found that 21 per cent said they were treated with no respect by centre staff.

Young Women’s Trust said more needed to be done to help women into work.

More than half of women said they lack self-confidence generally and nearly 40 per cent say they are not confident applying for a new job.

62 per cent of say they will not apply unless they feel they meet all the criteria, compared to 54 per cent of young men.

The survey found that 85 per cent said they do not receive feedback when they do apply for jobs.

Dr Easton said: “Young Women’s Trust’s report offers solutions based on what we have found works. We are calling on the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus to learn from this and improve the advice and support they offer.”

However, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the report fails to recognise that there are more women in work than ever before. It added that its own survey showed the majority of women were happy with the support they received from the job centre.

A DWP spokesman said: “This report fails to recognise that there are more women in work than ever before – up by well over a million since 2010 with fewer than 5 per cent of all young women unemployed and not in full-time education.

“Our jobcentre staff provide first rate support to thousands of people looking for work each day, and our latest survey showed that over 85 per cent of women were happy with the help they received.”

The DWP said the number of young women claiming unemployment benefits has fallen by more than half since 2010 and is now fewer than 60,000.

Griselda Togobo, managing director of women’s business organisation Forward Ladies, says employers need to be more open-minded in their approach to recruiting young people.

She said: “Young people are finding it harder than ever to get the support they need in the modern workplace. With the ever-changing employment landscape, employers need to be much more open minded in their approach to recruiting young people.”

Ms Togobo added that lack of confidence was a problem for women throughout their careers and that mentoring could help on that front.