Government job scheme falls short of target

The government has revealed that its flagship Kickstart youth jobs scheme had only created 160,000 jobs when the scheme closed at the end of March – compared to an original target of 250,000.

Kickstart was launched in September 2020, between the first and second waves of the pandemic, as a way to get a quarter of a million young people into work.

The scheme provides funding for employers who are create jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit, but has been dogged by administrative delays and reports of employers signing up to the programme but hearing nothing back from the government.

In a response to a written question from Conservative MP Selaine Saxby, Junior Employment Minister Mims Davies said that as of 31 March – the deadline for young people to commence Kickstart jobs – ‘around 160,000 Kickstart jobs have been started by young people’.

160,000 is less than two-thirds of the 250,000 target.

‘The last Kickstart jobs were started by young people on this date and we expect the number of starts to increase further as employers report commencement of employment,’ Davies added.

It is highly unlikely the target will be met by these late-reported jobs, however. Davies’ response said that at the end of January, 235,000 jobs had been advertised under the scheme, and that this total would not increase further.

The region with the largest number of Kickstart jobs started is London, with 32,100 as of 31 March, followed by the North West on 20,300. By contrast, fewer than 8,000 were created in the North East and Wales respectively. The scheme did not operate in Northern Ireland.

Nearly 40,000 jobs were started in administration, with a further 26,000 in retail and sales and 16,500 in creative and media.

Labour Party analysis previously found that Kickstart had created relatively few jobs in certain sectors with high numbers of vacancies, such as transport and storage, manufacturing, and healthcare.

The government’s figures for 31 March show that Kickstart job creation in the delivery and storage, manufacturing and healthcare sectors were all between 3,000 and 5,000 each, but only 460 jobs had been created in transport.

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