'Gap year' projects for jobless youth

Former Hamilton mayor Margaret Evans wants to give unemployed young people a chance to spend a "gap year" on environmental projects such as the public walkway from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

Ms Evans, who chairs the Waikato regional trust of the Te Araroa national walkway project, submitted a proposal to last week's Job Summit for a "Kiwi Corps" of young people aged 17 to 24.

She proposed that youths would spend 10 months from February to November working on Te Araroa and other walking tracks, huts, pest control, species protection and planting trees, plus some time for education including "programmes addressing key youth issues such as sex and alcohol".

Staff would be seconded from the Conservation Department, the military and other agencies, local educational institutes would provide the education, non-profit agencies would provide social work and recreation programmes, and "mature adults from hard-hit trades" would provide training and supervision.

The young people would live in Conservation Department facilities, local marae and school camp sites and would be paid the student allowance ($153 a week), less board.

"We are saying clip the ticket for $100 a week for the board and lodging," Ms Evans said.

She said the net cost would be minimal because the Government was committed to paying the student allowance or the dole (also $153 for a young person living away from home) anyway.

Young people are already being hit harder by the recession than older people with more secure jobs. At the end of last year, 47,200 of the 99,400 people counted as unemployed in the household labour force survey were aged 15 to 24, making up 7.7 per cent of all people in that age bracket.

Te Araroa chief executive Geoff Chapple has calculated that if overall unemployment rises to the forecast rate of 7.5 per cent, and young people remain 47 per cent of the total, the cost of paying the dole to all of them would be almost $750 million a year. (The dole is actually paid only to those over 18 or partnered with children).

Otorohanga Mayor Dale Williams, who chairs the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs, said the mayors would support the proposal. Stock Exchange chief executive Mark Weldon, who chaired the Job Summit, said it was "one of the options" being considered.

But Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly said the unions were very wary of "work for the dole".

"We are looking for paid work," she said.