The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed it will bring forward by one month the date from which it will no longer accept applications from employers for the wage incentive element of the scheme. It will now end on 6 August, rather than early September as originally planned.
Under the Youth Contract, payments of £2,275 are offered to employers as an incentive to hire 16- to 24-year-olds who have been unemployed for six months or longer on a 26-week placement but the DWP wants to reinvest the funding elsewhere.
The department says it will use the funding to provide targeted support through Jobcentre Plus for jobless 18- and 19-year-olds from black and minority ethnic communities, who the DWP claims face greater barriers to work than other young people.
The payments, introduced as part of the Youth Contract in April 2012, were branded a failure by campaigners in July 2013 when it emerged that the government had made only 4,690 payments in its first year.
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