An emergency £500 million plan to help the long-term unemployed back into work will be outlined today as employers, trade unions and ministers try to soften the impact of the growing jobs crisis.

People unemployed for more than six months will be guaranteed more intensive and personalised support to find work as the Government strives to prevent the inevitable surge in unemployment becoming permanent.

Gordon Brown and other ministers will announce “golden hellos” worth up to £2,500 for employers to recruit and train the long-term unemployed; 75,000 training places for people out of work for six months; and cash help for jobless people to set up businesses.

The moves will come at a “jobs summit” in Central London attended by 100 executives from Britain’s biggest companies, welfare providers, unions and employer organisations.

It takes place after predictions that unemployment could reach well over three million next year, and a CBI report that Britain’s financial services sector, which employs one million people, is to cut up to 15,000 jobs over the next 12 weeks.

Last night it emerged that Vauxhall workers are to be saved from compulsory redundancies but will be forced to concede both reduced working hours and cuts in pay, according to the car maker’s American parent.

Speaking at the Detroit Motor Show, Hans Demant, the managing director of GM Europe and a main board member of General Motors, said that the company and unions had agreed to a deal that will protect workers across Europe, including those at Britain’s two Vauxhall plants, from forced redundancies.

The jobs summit today comes amid growing concern that employers, rattled by the grim economic news, will step up redundancies in anticipation of a long, deep recession.

Unemployment grew rapidly throughout most of last year and in the first two weeks of the new year blue-chip companies, including Marks & Spencer, Barclays, Nissan UK and Bovis Homes, have announced job losses.

Economists say that there is a danger of a vicious circle in which job losses and fear of job losses reduce spending by consumers, forcing employers to cut back still further on staffing.

Plunging house prices and share prices have made the problem worse, making people feel poorer.

The overall value of Britons’ accumulated wealth in the fourth quarter of last year fell by about 17 per cent from its level a year earlier, the sharpest drop for more than four decades, according to research by Michael Saunders, the chief European economist for Citigroup.

Ministers insist that the mistake made in previous recessions was not to act to ensure that unemployment was temporary. As a result the downturn was longer than it needed to be and governments faced huge benefit bills.

James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will say today that the Government has chosen to invest millions now rather than pay out billions in the future to those on benefits.

Mr Brown will say that the Government will do everything to help those losing their jobs to find work again quickly or to get a new skill.

“We cannot always prevent people losing the last job but we can help people get the next job,” he will say. “Because we are determined to prevent short-term unemployment leading to long-term unemployment with all its consequences, and because we know that the risk of long-term unemployment increases as skills and confidence depreciates, we are setting out a new guarantee of intensive support for anyone still unemployed after six months.”

The sweeteners to employers will be similar to those already offered under the Government’s “new deal” scheme for the unemployed, but it will be tied to particular job-seekers.

A Jobcentre adviser would tell a company that, if it took on an unemployed individual, it could receive an incentive worth £1,000 or so and up to £2,500 if it trained that person as well.

The Government announced an extra £1.3 billion in the Pre-Budget Report to help all unemployed people, including taking on 6,000 extra front-office advisory staff in Jobcentres, and reversing the closure of some centres.

The £500 million released by the Treasury today is specifically targeted at the long-term unemployed.

John Denham, the University and Skills Secretary, will announce the extra 75,000 training places costing £83 million.

Vauxhall employs about 5,000 workers in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and in Luton.

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