Youth Contract scheme fails to ignite employer support
A third of employers don’t know about it, and a third have no interest in it. That’s the judgment on the Government’s Youth Contract employment scheme, launched in April to try and reverse the ever-growing numbers of young unemployed people in the UK.
A survey of 600 employers by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation found four out of five are not involved in the programme, under which incentives are paid to those hiring a young person.
The Youth Contract is supposed to provide nearly half a million new opportunities for 18-24 year-olds, including apprenticeships and voluntary work experience placements, and offers employers a wage incentive of up to £2,275 for hiring a young person.
Government to make apprenticeships simpler for SMEs, following Holt Review
The Government plans to work with the people that SMEs look to for advice, including lawyers and accountants, to promote apprenticeships to their SME customers. This is intended to enable SMEs to gain their apprentices the training they need by providing better information on availability and investigating how to give them a greater say in developing the skills they require.