Worklessness and unemployment are entirely different beasts, but with the recession purging the ranks of the employed, action to ensure they don't become trapped in a cycle of exclusion is all the more crucial. Mark Cantrell reports

In the words of Yosser Hughes - "Gizza job... I can do that."

The character in Alan Bleasedale's hard-hitting drama Boys From The Black Stuff, screened in late 1982, went on to become symbolic of the despair born of mass unemployment. Bernard Hill's portrayal of a man stripped of his job, his prospects, his self-respect, and his hope, provided a vivid demonstration of the toll the recession of that era was taking on ordinary families and individuals the length and breadth of the country.

Fast forward to 2009, and Yosser Hughes' desperate plea becomes symbolic of another generation of recession-hit families. Mass unemployment has returned, and though it remains below the Eighties' peak of three million, at just under 2.5 million it isn't far off.

Here is another emerging generation whose cry echoes that of Hughes, but the painful irony of this 'sequel' is that his fictional grandchildren may not to be among them. Rather, in the final indignity for this once proud and hard-working man, his descendents are more than likely to be among the ranks of the workless - trapped in a cycle of poverty and disadvantage. This is the grim potential lurking within the statistics as the recession munches its way through jobs.

The TUC has called rising unemployment the country's 'Number One Emergency' and urged the Government to do all it can to protect and create jobs as a means of steering both society and the economy out of recession.

"Unemployment is rising relentlessly. It will pass the 2.5 million mark next month and could hit three million by the end of the year. Behind these statistics are millions of people struggling to pay their mortgages and support their families," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

"What grates most is that ordinary working people are paying the price for the mistakes of an elite few who have laid the system to waste and still walked away with their millions. Even as unemployment rises at its fastest rate for 30 years, some city players are already talking about recovery in the financial sector, as if the spectre of three million unemployed doesn't matter," Barber added.

"There is only one indicator of economic recovery that matters, and that's when unemployment starts to fall and people can get back to work. Let us be clear, no recovery will be possible while there are millions of people out of work. We saw the price of unemployment in the 1980s - communities devastated, industries destroyed, and widespread social unrest. We cannot afford to go back to those days."

As in the '80s, as now, the lingering after-effects may well boost levels of deprivation, financial and social exclusion, and steadily erode community cohesion. It is feared that today's recession will make the problems of worklessness even worse; with the waves of redundancies, and fresh school leavers facing ever-lengthening dole queues, there is concern that it will promote long-term unemployment, leading in turn to even more workless households, and those 'not in education employment or training' (NEETS). According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), this latter group is four times more likely to occur in households where no adults work, demonstrating how the 'institutionalisation' of unemployment can all to easily transmit down the generations.

Unemployment disproportionately hits the young, which is why the TUC has welcomed the recent Budget's 'war chest' of £2 billion for schemes to help young people unemployed for over a year, though the organisation was concerned about the timing of its implementation. Some 111,000 young people (aged 18-24) have been unemployed for over 12 months, it says, and it fears that number will increase to 250,000 or more by early next year.

"We will not abandon a generation of Britain's young people to the unemployment scrapheap," said James Purnell, work and pensions secretary, announcing the new £1 billion Future Jobs Fund.

This is intended to help social enterprises and local authorities create at least 150,000 new jobs. Set against the sheer numbers of unemployed, however, that target might seem like small beer, but every little helps as it were. A new National Worklessness Forum has also been launched, to help councils spearhead job creation in their areas.

If nothing else, it shows a crucial difference to the hardline attitudes of the 1980s. In that unsympathetic age, mass unemployment was regarded in high office as the necessary price of economic modernisation. Of course, it's always easy to be blasé about the bill when someone else is reaching for the wallet: a truism as applicable to the current MPs' expenses scandal as it is the collateral damage of economic policy.

Given that many of today's problems around worklessness and deprivation had their primordial origins in the 1980s recession, it is perhaps just as well that the Government says it has 'learned its lesson' and eschewed the 'scrapheap' approach to managing mass unemployment, but the challenges - especially for those at the sharp end of implementing real measures - will be immense.

There are already some 4.5 million people living in workless households, according the CIH, even before the impact of the recession is factored into the equation. While the race is on to prevent today's unemployed becoming tomorrow's workless, the hard slog of combating pre-existing worklessness continues.

Late last year the CIH launched its 'Worklessness Toolkit' to assist social housing providers to tackle the problem. Some thought the recession inevitably made a hopeless mockery of the sector's efforts, but the CIH, and the Toolkit's author Helen Cope proved adamant that while the challenges have become so much harder, the recession made it all the more crucial a task.

Unemployment, of course, is not quite the same beast as worklessness, and so requires different strategies, but it is clear that the former - if not addressed - has the danger of nurturing the latter. As Tom Murtha, chief executive for Midland Heart, said: "It is the barriers to work that fuel worklessness, rather than the recession itself, which continues to feed unemployment. Worklessness and unemployment are two very different issues, however, both have a significant impact on people's lives and communities and therefore are of importance to us.

"We and other housing associations are perfectly positioned to provide the catalyst for change through our existing relationships with many of those affected. By coming face to face with worklessness, we are very well placed to assist individuals. It is clear that housing associations have a unique and increasingly important role to play in helping to tackle worklessness at a time when the need to bring about economic and social change has never been higher."

The echoes of Yosser Hughes are carrying across the decades; whether his rage is finally appeased, or drowned beneath the laments of another generation, will all depend on the outcomes of a wide range of agencies and individuals working together.

They may fail, of course; we won't know until long after the recession, but at least this time round there is a will to make a difference.

Reshaping the landscape

If landscaping is about reshaping the scenery, then Leeds ALMO Aire Valley Homes is using that as a way to help reshape the prospects of young people in some of the city's most deprived estates.

The ALMO has teamed up with environmental regeneration charity Groundworks, the city council and development quango Yorkshire Forward, to use landscaping and construction as vehicles to provide work experience, training, and employment opportunities for young people aged between 16 and 25.

By the same measure, Building Opportunities To Success, as the scheme is called, is providing improvements to the communities in the south and south east of the city, where these young people live, by putting them to work on local regeneration schemes. After completing the scheme, the aim is that they are then able to go on to further training, apprenticeships or full-time employment.

"The programme is targeted at recruiting 16-25 year olds from some of the most disadvantaged communities in the city, engaging them in a programme of training that offers a service back to the community," said Aire Valley Homes' Mark Wheelwright. "The scheme will work closely with local people and the organisation's 'area panels' helping to direct the work back into the communities in which the trainees live."

To date, around 1,300 "out of work people" have been contacted about the scheme and nearly 50 have taken up the opportunity to get involved, gaining work experience and vocational training, and complete a tailored 'back to work' plan. Some 64 improvement works have been completed to green areas in Aire Valley Home's estates, and 17 local community groups have received support. Eight people have moved from unemployment to paid work.

One of the participants was local resident Jason Lupton (pictured). He said: "I was struggling to find employment in the area. Then I saw the Building Opportunities flyer at the Job Centre, enrolled onto the 12 week course, and was thrilled to be offered a placement as one of Aire Valley's environmental caretaking schemes following my initial training with Groundwork."

A fair way to work

'Work Fairs' are proving a popular and productive method of helping Hackney residents brush up their job-seeking skills, if not gain outright employment.

As well as offering CV writing and interview 'self-promotion' workshops, the fairs bring together vacancies, sources of advice, as well as signposting services all under one roof. The third such fair is expected to run in June, and between fairs, weekly surgery sessions are held for local jobseekers at St Paul's Church hall.

The fairs are spearheaded by Genesis Community, a charitable foundation established by Genesis Housing Group, which works in partnership with fellow Group member Pathmeads and Hackney council, as well as nine other RSL partners.

Iain Mackechnie-Jarvis, head of Genesis Community, said: "We are committed to helping out of work people in Hackney to find employment. These events show that by working so successfully with our partners, we are making a positive difference."

Over 70 per cent of people who attended the last fair registered for 'Ways into Work', a free and local service that offers advice to local residents which is run by the council. Since the scheme was launched last June, over 3,000 people have taken part and over 500 people have been helped back into work.

"I found the event very useful, because I met other people like myself who are unemployed and find it hard to get work," said one unemployed Hackney resident, Fiona Cunningham, after visiting the fair. "I also appreciated the support and efforts from those who helped me that day."

Sharpening a three-pronged approach

Birmingham City Council has taken a long hard look at its strategies to tackle unemployment and worklessness, and realised it must improve its partnership working and its performance monitoring, if it is to remain effective in the current economic climate.

The review, led by Councillor Tahir Ali, of the regeneration overview and scrutiny committee, considered the council's work as well as JobCentre Plus and the Learning Skills Council to consider how the three organisations worked together. It also looked at the delivery of projects by agencies such as Enterprising Communities, Aston Pride and the East Birmingham North Solihull Regeneration Zone, to assess how the schemes help people into work and reduce levels of worklessness.

"The aim of our investigation was to explore what impact these strategies and programmes have had, and what we could learn from these experiences," said Councillor Tahir. "Our concern was the worklessness rates in some of the most deprived areas which, despite a period of sustained economic growth accompanied by relatively high employment rates, were over 30 per cent."

In addition to calling for a better partnership approach to agencies delivering projects, and monitoring performance, the review also called on the council to enhance its own recruitment process to ensure they target key groups; look more closely and planning and procurement to "capture more jobs for local people"; improve childcare facilities; and consider introducing loans to people who take employment with the council straight from benefits, to help ease the financial burdens of the transition.

"These actions are also important as we work to combat the effects of the current recession, but it is essential to maintain our focus on worklessness," Councillor Tahir added. "The commitment of partners to tackle worklessness has increased over the last few years and this should continue. Most importantly, we should not lose focus on those more deprived areas which need our help and those individuals who have been without work for many years."