Businesses are set to benefit from subsidies worth £2,275 provided to help them take on 18 to 24 year old workers.

Businesses are set to benefit from subsidies worth £2,275 provided to help them take on 18 to 24 year old workers.

The £1 billion youth contract programme, announced by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, aims for 160,000 young people to be employed across the country over a three-year period.

Clegg says, ‘The aim of the Youth Contract is to get every unemployed young person earning or learning again before long term damage is done.

‘[The scheme] gets young people into proper, lasting jobs in the private sector.’

The programme will begin next April and seeks to get young people into a range of employment sectors, from the traditional, like retail and construction, to the emerging, like the green economy.

The package also aims to assist unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds by getting them back to school or college, into an apprenticeship or into a job with training. Extra funding for apprenticeships and a £50 million programme to help 16 and 17-year-olds who are persistently not in education, employment, or training is also part of the initiative.

The government is moving to control the growing number of unemployed youths in the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, youth unemployment surged to a 17-year high last month with more than one million 16 to 24-year-olds unemployed.

John Cridland, director general of the Confederation of British Industry says, ‘This is good news for young people up and down the country. It will encourage firms to take a gamble on a young inexperienced person and help tackle the scourge of youth unemployment.’

However, Carmen Watson, managing director of recruitment consultancy Pertemps says that while the scheme represents a much-needed effort to tackle joblessness among young people, it should only been seen as one step in the journey towards reaching this goal.

‘A much more far-reaching initiative is required to dramatically reduce what is an incredibly worrying situation,’ she adds.

See also: SMEs give Employment Bill cautious welcome