a year. Ms Wilkinson claims the moves will encourage employers to take a chance on young, inexperienced workers who would otherwise drift on to a benefit. She points to Labour Department research which found that scrapping the youth minimum wage resulted in the loss of 9000 jobs -- though its report was not as straightforward as she suggests. Ms Wilkinson is right to be concerned about youth unemployment, which is about 25 per cent at present. However, simply reducing the amount young people can be paid is not the way to solve it, and could have adverse consequences for other workers. The starting-out wage is predicted to "create" 2000 jobs for 16 to 19-year-olds but, tellingly, an information sheet on the change fails to answer its own question of whether those jobs will just be transferred from other age groups. There is also no satisfactory explanation as to why the period of "eligibility" needs to be extended to six months. By definition, young workers being hired at the lower rate will be filling jobs that are unskilled and require little experience. It is difficult to see why they cannot be brought up to speed within three months, especially as the Government itself considers that sufficient for new workers subject to employment probation periods to prove themselves. There is also a real risk that unscrupulous employers will use the change to take on teenagers for menial jobs that do nothing to improve their skills and experience then show them the door