Young people on benefits will be offered job opportunities in industries such as construction and hospitality in a bid to tackle rising youth unemployment.
The government will fund 350,000 training and work experience places, and secure 55,000 jobs in the areas it says are most in need from spring 2026.
The funding will come from the £820m announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Budget last month to fund a series of measures aimed at getting young people off Universal Credit and into work.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the schemes would help unemployed young people “do something with their lives”. But the Conservatives blamed the Budget for increasing youth unemployment.
The number of young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in work, education or training (known as NEETs) has been on an upward trend since 2021, with the latest figures showing that almost a million young people are neither earning nor learning.
The government had already announced in September its intention to offer guaranteed work placements for 18- to 21-year-olds who had been out of work or out of school for more than 18 months, and those who did not take up the offer without good reason would risk losing their benefits.
New training and work experience opportunities for young people on Universal Credit will be in sectors such as construction, hospitality and health and social care, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced on Saturday.
He said the government-supported jobs will not necessarily be in the same sectors, but will be in the following regions:
- Birmingham and Solihull
- the east midlands
- Greater Manchester
- Hertfordshire and Essex
- Central and eastern Scotland
- South West and South East Wales
The government says a total of 900,000 young people receiving Universal Credit and looking for work will receive a “targeted job support session”, followed by an additional four weeks of “intensive support”.
A careers advisor will then refer them to one of six pathways: work, work experience, apprenticeships, further training, apprenticeships or a workplace training program with a guaranteed interview.
The government expects more than 1,000 young people to start working in the first six months of the plan.
“All young people deserve a fair chance to succeed. When given the right support and opportunities, they will take advantage of them,” McFadden said.
He described the funding as “a down payment on the future of young people.”
But shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately criticized other measures announced in the Budget, saying: “The Chancellor’s tax rises are increasing youth unemployment, robbing a generation of young people of a career.”
And he added: “This plan is nothing more than taking with one hand to give with the other.”
More plans are expected to be set out next week as the government prepares to publish its national youth strategy.
Reeves previously announced the government would fund a scheme to make apprenticeships for under-25s in small and medium-sized businesses “completely free”.
There were 946,000 young NEETs in the UK in the three months to September, equivalent to 12.7% of all people aged 16-24.
A quarter cite long-term illness or disability as a barrier to work or education, while the number of people claiming health and disability benefits is also increasing.
The government announced last month it would launch an independent review into the growing number of young people not in work or education.
