Labour to expand youth work experience and training schemes

Ministers are expanding youth work experience and training schemes after warnings that Britain spends far more on keeping young people on benefits than helping them into work. Plans will add 300,000 extra work experience placements over three years to address a youth employment crisis. Nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, and almost 60% have never had a job. The approach targets barriers created by disappearing entry-level jobs and pandemic disruption. New analysis indicates participants are 13% more likely to be in work two years later, and four in 10 move into sustained employment within six months. About half the placements will come through six-week sector-based work academy programmes with guaranteed interviews, with record starts reported for the current year.

"Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary will announce plans for 300,000 extra work experience placements over the next three years as Labour attempts to tackle what the minister described as a quiet crisis in youth employment. Nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training (Neet), with McFadden warning that almost 60% have never had a job at all. It's a quiet crisis, a ticking timebomb, which risks their future working lives, he said, adding: It's hardest for young people without family connections."

"No job because they have no experience and no experience because they don't have a job. McFadden told the Guardian that many traditional first rung jobs had disappeared as retail employment declined and the pandemic disrupted workplace experience for younger people. Talent is spread evenly across the country, but opportunity is not, he said. New analysis for the DWP suggests young people taking part in this scheme are 13% more likely to be in work two years later than their counterparts who did not take part, while four in 10 people move into sustained employment within six months."

"Around half the placements will come through sector-based work academy programmes known as Swaps, which are six-week training schemes with guaranteed job interviews at the end. Nearly 100,000 Swaps took place in 2025-26, according to DWP figures, with 25,000 young people aged 16-24 a record number starting one this year. Ministers are targeting 115,000 placements next year. McFadden's remarks and the expansion of the scheme comes as Milburn warned that the country had become neglectful of a generation struggling to access work and training opportunities."

"This is really shameful, Milburn told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme. We as a society, and w"

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