The Labour Party’s guarantee for youth will be similar to an outreach programme that follows up young people who leave school and remain unemployed.

The cost of not doing it is much bigger than the cost of doing it

“This is the guarantee we are giving. We will follow up the young people who do not remain at school after the age of 16 and cannot be traced as employed or self-employed,” Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

“We’ll call them in, on a voluntary basis. We will look into what’s holding them back from continuing their education and why they are not finding jobs,” he explained.

This would require a joint effort by the government, the Employment and Training Corporation and local councils. Dr Muscat was speaking during a meeting with student organisation Pulse at the University. The meeting was called by Pulse to discuss Labour’s guarantee for youths on education, training and jobs. Only the first few minutes of the meeting were open to the media but, before the doors were shut, Dr Muscat took questions from journalists who asked him to clarify aspects of the youth guarantee campaign, which has so far remained somewhat vague.

He said the idea was to look at the database of those who were still in school and those who were working and focus on those not registering for employment or unemployed.

The priority would be to encourage them to continue studying. The second option would be to give them training to bring out their employment potential.

Private companies would be incentivised to offer training and internships to equip them with desirable skills.

Dr Muscat said Labour was not re-inventing the wheel but taking on best practices from other European countries. This was part of a European Socialist Party campaign. The aim was to lobby so that Europe would agree to guarantee a good future for young people, just as governments agreed on protecting banks and on bailouts. Asked how much the scheme would cost, he said it was difficult to say because it depended on how many young people would accept support.

“The cost of not doing it is much bigger than the cost of doing it,” he said.

“We believe the numbers are significant but are small enough to be managed.”

After the meeting, Pulse said it was glad to see such consultation taking place on a political level.