Unemployed people aged under 23 will be made to follow training under the youth guarantee scheme or lose their unemployment benefit, the finance minister announced in the Budget speech today.

He said such people would lose their benefit if they refused to follow courses, or did not attend when they were supposed to under the Youth Guarantee Scheme.

Similar measures, he said, were being taken against single parents, aged up to 23, when their child was more than one year old.

"To be a single mother is not a profession," the minister said. Such people, too, were being encouraged to work, more so now that free childcare had been introduced . Single women who were unemployed and refused to follow training would therefore lose their social benefits.

In all cases, a four-month grace period will be allowed.

Tapering of social benefits after marriage

From the start of next year, a person who is receiving social benefits and gets married, or forms a civil union, with a person in employment will no longer lose entitlement to social benefits immediately after the union. Instead, the social assistance would be reduced gradually over a period of three years.

More Budget stories in the Budget section at http://www.timesofmalta.com/budget