A good solution to unemployment is killed off. Again.

The coalition government need only look back 24 years to see why they should not cancel the Future Jobs Fund and the vital help it’s providing to people suffering from long-term unemployment.

Future Jobs Fund really does work. I know it does firstly because we’re taking part and have evidence of it working after creating 233 employment opportunities in 7 towns and cities across the UK in the last ten months. Seeing the lack of self-confidence of so many people prior to life-changing opportunities under the Future Jobs Fund and then seeing them on their graduation day, totally transformed, shows that the Future Jobs Fund constituted a winning formula.

The second reason I know Future Jobs Fund works is because it’s a repeat of the same process that rescued me from long-term unemployment 24 years ago when I was 16 years old and told I couldn’t have a career in hi-tech. Back then it wasn’t called Future Jobs Fund but Youth Training Scheme (YTS) – a programme funded by government to help employers hire unemployed young people and train them. The same as Future Jobs Fund.

There were the usual critics saying that employers would exploit us young people for cheap labour – but the people saying that were employed and in a career. For us it was a way out – a chance to be trained by experts, prove ourselves and start careers. And that we did – in our thousands. It was a formula that was working – but rather than take it and keep replicating the success it was eventually cancelled.

Seeing what happened with the Youth Training Scheme and now the Future Jobs Fund makes me realise we need a better way of driving a successful welfare-to-work model that can scale and replicate and never stop. To achieve that therefore we need to create a market-led approach that creates these opportunities without always needing government intervention for employers to get involved.

So the call to arms is for employers of all enterprises to rise-up together and create a manifesto to get involved and find a way to achieve this. It is possible – but of course we can’t do it on the extreme capitalism model that has plagued this past decade (which most businesses don’t take part in but have been tarnished by).

If we can align market makers with the needs of society and link it to people suffering from unemployment we can re-design business processes and state aid projects to better work together – and once a solution has been found that works we can replicate it at a cost that gets lower over time whilst increasing success. It’ll be a global solution as well linked to global needs.

The good news is that the current market and social conditions in the world shows a logical need for this re-alignment and therefore one day soon we will have the momentum to achieve the above. And then everyone will be able to enjoy a career and never suffer the damage caused by long-term unemployment and lack of opportunities.