The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Youth Contract, worth almost £1 billion, builds on existing support to provide young people with more intensive adviser support and work experience, as well as providing employers with wage incentives and apprenticeship grants to encourage them to recruit young people. This will create around 500,000 opportunities for young people and will ensure that every unemployed young person will receive the support that they need.
On 17 December 2012, the Government will extend the eligibility of the employer wage incentive element of the Youth Contract to include all young people, aged 18 to 24, who reach six months on benefit. This will make an incentive worth up to £2,275 available to businesses that employ these young people for six months or more, as it has been in 20 youth unemployment “hotspots” since July. This means that wage incentives will be available via Jobcentre Plus before most young people enter the Work programme.
Providing earlier access to wage incentives across Great Britain will simplify the offer for employers and will allow greater collaborative working between Jobcentre Plus and Work programme providers.
In order to maintain additional provision in the youth unemployment “hotspots”, extra Jobcentre Plus support will be made available for young people at the start of their claim in these areas. This is equivalent to an additional 80 minutes adviser time every fortnight from day one to month three of a young person’s claim. This will start to become available from January next year.