BOLTON, Bury and Wigan are lagging behind in getting young people into jobs through the Government's New Deal for the unemployed.

New figures show Bolton and Wigan are in the worst performing half of Britain while Bury only just scrapes into the top half.

Out of 142 New Deal areas, Bolton comes 85th, Wigan 83rd and Bury 62nd. The figures are based on the people who entered the New Deal scheme in April this year.

The league table is based on the number of under-25s who go on the New Deal and subsequently obtain jobs.

Subsidised

In the case of Bolton only 19 of the 67 New Dealers --#151; 28.4pc --#151; got jobs.

Of these jobs 11 (16.4pc), were unsubsidised and eight (11.9pc) were subsidised.

In Wigan the proportion of youngsters getting work was the same at 28.4 pc --#151; 27 out of 95.

Unsubsidised jobs were found by 17 young people (17.9pc) and subsided jobs by 10 (10.5pc).

In Bury, the situation was slightly better where 16 of the 50 New Dealers (32pc) found jobs, 10 of them (20pc) found unsubsidised jobs and six (12pc) subsidised ones.

Employment Minister Andrew Smith said nationally since the new deal began 38,400 had got jobs at a cost of £1,000 each while another 22,430 had gone into education or voluntary work.

He was encouraged that in the more successful areas 40pc or more had got jobs with four areas of Scotland recording 50pc or better success rates.

Bolton NE MP David Crausby said: "This is a reasonable start, but I hope and expect things to get better.

"Getting young people into jobs, especially unsubsidised jobs, is what we want to do.

"This is a good scheme and I shall be keeping a close eye on performance to try and make sure that as many young people in Bolton and areas surrounding find work." Picture: Nigel Taggart

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