The Government has unveiled a major employment drive aimed at creating 200,000 jobs and apprenticeships for young people, including a new Youth Jobs Grant.
The Youth Jobs Grant will see businesses receive £3,000 for every young person they hire aged 18-24 who has been on Universal Credit and looking for work for six months.
The Local Government Association (LGA) welcomed the announcement, highlighting the importance of sustained investment in tackling youth unemployment.
Cllr Tom Hunt, chair of the LGA’s Inclusive Growth Committee, said it was vital to ‘pull every lever’ to improve outcomes for young people.
He added that councils already play a central role in supporting 16–24-year-olds into education, employment and training, and are well placed to deliver joined-up local support.
Xiaowei Xu, a senior research economist at the think tank IFS, said the move would expand support for only a small proportion of young people on Universal Credit.
‘The newly announced policies will benefit only a small share of nearly one million young people who are currently not in employment, education or training (NEET),’ she said.
‘In particular, they do not target over 300,000 young people on Universal Credit who are not required to search for work, mostly due to health conditions. This group has increased substantially in the last few years. Stemming its rise will be important for making progress on youth employment.’
