£300m pledged to tackle youth unemployment in white paper

Building Britain's Recovery: Achieving Full Employment promises more than 100,000 work and training opportunities to under 25s who have been unemployed for six months or more.

The proposals also set out plans to make it compulsory for unemployed young people to accept an offer of employment, training or work experience before they reach ten months unemployed.

To help parents get into work, the white paper suggests setting up a Family Friendly Working Hours Taskforce to look into increasing the availability of flexible and part-time work.

To coincide with Cooper's announcement, 14-19 minister, Ian Wright, launched a cross-government Neets strategy, Investing in Potential.

It includes plans to incentivise the children's workforce to take on 200 apprentices and £12.5m to fund golden hellos for employers that take on 16 and 17-year-old apprentices.

Wright said: "Investing in young people during the economic downturn is a vital commitment to ensure that the tough economic climate does not ruin the prospects of a generation of young people."

Meanwhile a report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) claimed young people are faring better in this recession than the last, despite the fact that those in their teens and twenties are bearing the brunt of the downturn.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC said: "The outlook for young people is not as bleak as it was in the 1980s. But even though the figures are not as bad as they were a generation ago, for every young person struggling to get work, this recession is a personal tragedy."