Motorcycle Loans

JOBLESS people will be offered loans to buy cars or motorcycles, or financial help to take driving lessons, in a fresh attack on long-term unemployment recently unveiled.

The Government will announce - along with another expected fall in the jobless figures - that specialised teams with budgets of up to 1.5 million will be sent to unemployment blackspots to help to remove obstacles that stop people taking jobs.

The measures are targeted at reasons, such as lack of transport, regularly given for people declining to take jobs. Where public transport is not available people will be offered loans to help them to buy transport.

Ministers say the sums will usually be hundreds rather than thousands of pounds, enough to buy safe, roadworthy second-hand vehicles. The package will be unveiled by Tessa Jowell, the Employment Minister, when she announces the first three of an eventual 40 employment 'hit squads' to go into areas with a much higher unemployment rate than the national average. The first to benefit from the six-strong teams, made up of employment service experts, and representatives of the voluntary and private sectors, will be East Ayrshire, Hartlepool and Thanet.

Today's jobless figures will show the number of benefit claimants dropping closer towards the 1 million mark. But with a claimed one million job vacancies ministers believe that more must be done to assist those who have been out of work for more than one year.

The overall employment rate in every region of Britain is now higher than the European Union average but within those regions there are enormous variations, with areas of high unemployment alongside those with a relatively low figure.

The teams will negotiate discounted train and bus fares with local operators to make it easier for people to get to work and travel to job interviews.

Money will also be spent on computerising vacancy lists. The teams will help the unemployed to find vacancies and employers to fill them. "Sometimes the employers are forgotten. They need to be encouraged as well," a government source said.

Ms Jowell said last night: "There are 900,000 more people in work since the general election but we have to redouble our efforts to help people who have been out of work for a long time to get the jobs that may be only a bus-ride away."

Young people can already get help to prepare for work through 'soft skills' courses run under the New Deal.