ABSTRACT
Within the context of worsening employment, the particular plight of young people has been identified as a subject for special concern. The Manpower Services Commission (MSC), set up in 1974 to foster training and employment services, has grown enormously as a state agency, particularly in the area of providing special temporary measures to combat unemployment - and most of these have been directed towards young people. Young people are always particularly vulnerable to unemployment in a recession, largely due to cuts in recruitment. Changes in the industrial structure of employment over the last decade have exacerbated the problem, rendering young people’s employment prospects particularly bleak. In the early days of MSC’s operations, it perceived its role as helping young people to overcome the disadvantage they suffered in competing for jobs with older workers - lack of experience.
