Top tip for NEETS: Get a hair cut! 

BBC Panorama focuses on jobless young people in Swindon

 

Lord Digby Jones, the plain-speaking captain of industry, offered some straight advice to two young people looking for work in Swindon this week - 'get a hair cut' for starters! 

 

The former Government trade minister was appearing on the BBC Panorama programme, which was re-visiting four young men first featured in 2007 as unemployed and NEETs - not in education, employment or training.

 

Two who subsequently have gone on to find work - and two who haven't, despite Government help.

 

> watch Panorama on BBC iPlayer

 

His blunt suggestion to the two men still unemployed:

 

"Do you really think you'll impress me looking like that," he said, while speaking to them in a disused area of the Swindon Works.

 

"I'm feeling quite disheartened, because you two guys are in the middle of a society that billions of people on this earth would love to be.

 

"You're giving me loads of reasons why you can't, as opposed to one reason while you can.

 

"You're tailored-made for employment for God's sake.

 

"If I was watching this, I'd throw something at the TV and say 'get off your backsides and we should stop all your benefits and starve you into getting back to work'."

 

The full episode is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer.