Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the impact of her Department's policies to help people under 25 get into work on levels of youth unemployment in the most recent period for which data is available.

The Department launched the Plan for Jobs as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes DWP’s Youth Offer and the Kickstart Scheme which are targeted at supporting young people aged under 25 to find employment.

The DWP Youth Offer provides intensive Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 on Universal Credit and in the Intensive Work Search group. It includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with complex needs and additional barriers, and over 150 Youth Hubs across England, Scotland, and Wales.

Since the Kickstart Scheme’s launch in September 2020 over 163,000 Kickstart jobs have been started by young people. We know that young people have been hardest hit by the economic impact of the pandemic and are delighted that employers up and down the country have made over 235,000 jobs available for them to apply to. The final Kickstart job starts took place on 31st March 2022 and the last jobs will come to an end on 30th September 2022.

The Department has a range of evaluation activities in train to assess the impact these policies on young people, in particular in relation to the department’s evaluation of the Plan for Jobs, including the DWP Youth Offer and the Kickstart Scheme.

Official Labour Market Statistics are produced by the ONS. The latest data (Feb-April ’22) shows that 455,000 young people are unemployed, this is a decrease of 7,000 on the previous quarter and a decrease of 59,000 compared to pre-pandemic levels (Dec-Feb ’20).