The 16 and 17-year-olds will be given opportunities in a range of jobs from office-based work, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution to construction through the initiative called the Clyde Gateway Future Jobs Fund.

The scheme, which aims to support young Glaswegians who would otherwise struggle to find employment, is the result of a partnership between Clyde Gateway, Glasgow City Council and the charity Action for Children Scotland which already runs a successful Youthbuild programme that finds work in the construction industry for unemployed young people.

The new initiative will be open to young people from the communities of Bridgeton, Calton, Camlachie, Dalmarnock, Oatlands and Toryglen in Glasgow.

Training and support will be provided by Action for Children staff and the progress of the young people will be monitored.

Councillor George Redmond, Clyde Gateway board member, said: "Clyde Gateway wants to ensure that as many of our local residents as possible can obtain jobs and training places in all of the activity that is on-going across our communities.

"This new partnership will bring immediate benefits to 50 of our young people, some of whom will have grown-up in difficult circumstances.

"Action for Children Scotland has an excellent track record in giving youngsters a great start in their working lives and I've no doubt they will have a huge and positive impact here in the East End."

Although the job opportunities on offer are different, the new fund will operate in a very similar way to Action for Children Scotland's Youthbuild programme which helps young people from the most deprived areas and difficult backgrounds into permanent jobs in the building trade.

Anas Sarwar, MP for Glasgow Central praised the new initiative and said: "The challenge of creating jobs will be a defining political issue in the coming years. Recent figures show that 40,000 18 to 24-year-olds in Scotland are claiming Job Seekers Allowance, up from 36,900 in December 2010.

"We are facing a youth jobs crisis. That's why this initiative is so important to young people who live in my constituency.

"I applaud Action for Children and its partners for creating these much-needed opportunities and I look forward to watching the progress of the young people involved."