PM pledges apprenticeships and training for every young person

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the pledge during a speech delivered in Dudley earlier today (30 July) in which he outlined plans to help the economy “bounce forward” in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

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The initiative would help young people maintain the skills and confidence they needed to find the job that was right for them, he said.

“I am conscious as I say all this that it sounds like a prodigious amount of government intervention.

“It sounds like a New Deal and all I can say is that if so, then that is how it is meant to sound  because that is what the times demand,” Johnson said.

Helping young people into employment or training was part of the government’s strategy to “put its arms around people at a time of crisis”, he added.

Johnson said issues such as tackling homelessness, food poverty and a skills crisis would be addressed in the government’s post-coronavirus recovery plan.

Despite the announcement being welcomed by sector representatives, it follows the publication last week of a Social Mobility Commission report warning that disadvantaged young people are being failed by the apprenticeship system.

Furthermore, the commission said the coronavirus crisis was likely to worsen youth unemployment in the UK.

Sam Windett, director of policy at private equity foundation Impetus, said: “We’re delighted to see the Prime Minister announce an Opportunity Guarantee for young people, which we have been calling for.

“The challenge of the youth jobs crisis is enormous and the Prime Minister is right to meet it with the energy and ambition demonstrated by the government’s furlough scheme.”

Windett, who also chairs the Youth Employment Group formed in response to the coronavirus crisis, said he would be working with the government to develop the initiative further, ensuring that young people were offered good quality employment, education or training.

Responding to the speech, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), which represents training providers that train the majority of apprentices in England, said the inclusion of work placements as a key part of the opportunity guarantee was an “important step forward”.

PM promises ‘every young person’ the ‘chance of an apprenticeship or an in-work placement’ https://t.co/BFLHclo2rm via @FEweek

— AELP (@AELPUK) June 30, 2020

However, Mark Dawe, AELP chief executive, said it had recently submitted, at the government’s request, reasons preventing the traineeship programme from taking off.

“We believe incentives for SME employers will be needed.

“On apprenticeships, we don’t believe that the floated £3k employer incentive is going to cut it.

“To meet a 50 per cent wage subsidy, the subsidy for a young apprentice in their first year should be around £4k and up to £7.5k in the second year depending on their age,” he said.