Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the factors that have contributed to young workers being disproportionately affected by the covid-19 outbreak.

Throughout this crisis, the Government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods whilst supporting businesses and public services across the UK. We recognise that unfortunately it has not been possible to protect every business and every job, and our thoughts are with those who have been impacted by this virus.

While the pandemic has had a significant impact across the whole labour market, certain groups have been more affected than others. Young people have been some of the hardest hit by the pandemic and unemployment can have longstanding implications for their future jobs and wages. The plans announced at Budget 2021 seek to address this and will help promote opportunity for the young.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is specifically designed to protect jobs, and it has been used by 1.3m employers to support 11.2m jobs. This includes supporting young people, with preliminary data showing 855,200 16-24-year-olds were furloughed at the end of January.

VAT reductions and extending business rates relief for businesses in the hospitality sector will continue to protect both the UK economy and the livelihoods of people across the country. In particular, this will benefit, BAME employees, under-25s and women, who make up a higher percentage of employees in hospitality relative to other sectors.

The Budget 2021 also announced an extension of the traineeships programme until the end of the next academic year, benefiting 16–24-year-olds. We are also extending incentives for apprentices, and our £2 billion Kickstart scheme is already creating thousands of new jobs for 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit at risk of long-term unemployment.