Labour promise 1,000 jobs for older women

Labour claim they will get 1,000 unemployed older women back to work in Scotland if they win the General Election.

The party has revealed figures showing unemployment among women over 50 has rocketed since 2010 with 1,000 having been out of work for over two years, an increase of more than 330%.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran has promised they’ll all be offered work under Labour’s jobs guarantee policy and repeated her call for more job-creating powers to be devolved to Holyrood.

The guarantee aims to find work for anyone unemployed for more than two years. Labour say they’ll pay for it with a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

Curran said: “1,000 older women in Scotland have been looking for a job for over two years. This is the generation that broke the glass ceiling and fought for equal pay and rights at work. But today, for too many of them, unemployment means the end of their working life.

“Labour’s jobs guarantee would give 1,000 older women in Scotland a job.

“But we can’t wait until then. That’s why the job-creating powers agreed by the Smith Commission have to be devolved to Scotland now so our communities take charge and get people back to work.”