Government’s JETS scheme launches to coach jobseekers
A £238m employment programme will see jobseekers offered coaching and advice on moving into “growing sectors”, the government has said.
Jobs Entry Targeted Support, or JETS, is aimed at helping those out of work because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Department for Work and Pensions says it is recruiting an additional 13,500 work coaches to help deliver the new scheme. Speaking to the BBC, work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey said JETS would give people “the helping hand they need”.
However, Labour slammed the government for the programme, saying “all it can muster… are piecemeal schemes and meaningless slogans”. The party’s shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “This new scheme offers very little new support and relies on already overstretched work coaches on the ground while many of the new work coaches promised have yet to materialise. It’s too little too late again from a government that simply can’t get a grip on the jobs crisis.”
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