TWO young jobseekers, who are the first to benefit from a scheme putting Newport's long term unemployed back to work, are looking to the future now they have a foot on the career ladder.

Newport city council launched the £3million Newport Future Jobs Fund yesterday, which will provide 472 six month long contracts for 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for 12 months or more.

At the end of the six months, they will be offered extra support to help them find permanent work.

Fran Compton, 21, of Moorland Park, Newport, has been searching for work for the last nine months since leaving her job at Tesco Extra.

Miss Compton, who left Lliswerry High School at 16 with no qualifications, thought she would be able to find other work in retail, but with the country in deep recession she was left out in the cold.

During her search, Miss Compton began volunteering at the Moorland and Broadmead Park community centre.

It was there she found out about the Future Jobs Fund, and she will start work on Monday as an assistant at the community centre on Monday.

Miss Compton, who hopes to work with young offenders, said: “It means everything to me to be working again. I can see a career path now, where I couldn’t see one before.”

Stuart Stone, also 21, from Duffryn, has never worked since leaving college with a first diploma in IT skills two years ago.

Relying on £101 a fortnight in job seekers allowance and hand outs from his mum to get by, he described how applying for jobs was a “vicious circle” because adverts asked for experience, but to get experience he needed a job.

From Monday, Mr Stone will start work as an administrative assistant at Duffryn Community Link.

“It felt amazing to be told I would be working and I’m so excited to get started,” he said.

Leader of Newport city council Cllr Matthew Evans said: “It is criminal that we have let down a generation of 18-24 years olds who are being left on the side lines. We often do a lot of talking about what should be done, but this shows the results coming through.”