THOUSANDS of Liverpool people will be helped to find work after the Liberal Democrats secured significant European funding.

It has been awarded a European Social Fund grant for £5.7m to help fund the City Employment Strategy, an initiative which tackles worklessness on a local level.

The funding will be used to target 20,800 city residents and it aims to get more than 9,000 into work with others engaged in searching for jobs or taking part in education courses.

The grant will be used to develop the work of the JET -Jobs, Education and Training Service -until 2011 and the Transitional Employment Team.

Among the initiatives the grant will fund is to provide advice on managing debt.

"One of the barriers we have found to people coming off  benefits and going into work is about managing money and debts, " explained  Cllr Flo Clucas, Executive Member for Finance and Europe. "There is a comfort zone with benefits which some people know that bills may be paid  and there is a fear that by taking a job there will have to take more responsibility for managing their money.

"By providing greater support and advice over these issues we can encourage people to  seek work and come off benefits.

"We are also targeting particular groups, including lone parents, the over -50s and black and racial minority groups, who have particular difficulties in getting into the jobs market.

"Nobody is underestimating the difficulties of tackling worklesseness at this time when unemployment is rising all over the country but we will be using this grant -which is given to Merseyside by the European community - to work with Jobcentre Plus and other partners to ensure that as many of our residents are as well equipped as possible to  find work."

A further £300,000 grant, part of the multi area agreement, will deliver a pilot programme  to provide advice for employers.