Ministers are expanding youth work-experience and training schemes, after Alan Milburn warned Britain is spending \u00a325 keeping young people on benefits for every \u00a31 spent helping them into work.<\/p>\n
Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, will announce plans for 300,000 extra work experience placements over the next three years as the government attempts to tackle what the minister described as a \u201cquiet crisis\u201d in youth employment.<\/p>\n
Nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training (Neet), and McFadden warned that almost 60% have never had a job at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a quiet crisis, a ticking timebomb, which risks their future working lives,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s hardest for young people without family connections. No job because they have no experience and no experience because they don\u2019t have a job.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFadden said that many traditional \u201cfirst rung\u201d jobs had disappeared as retail employment declined and the pandemic disrupted workplace experience for younger people. \u201cTalent is spread evenly across the country, but opportunity is not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The government hopes an expansion of sector-based work academy programmes (Swaps) can help reverse the trend.<\/p>\n
Around half the placements will come through Swaps, which are six-week training schemes with guaranteed job interviews at the end.<\/p>\n
Pat McFadden and and Keir Starmer with construction apprentices in London this month. Photograph: Toby Melville\/Reuters<\/p>\n
New analysis for the Department for Work and Pensions suggests young people taking part in Swaps 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.<\/p>\n
Nearly 100,000 Swaps took place in 2025-26, according to DWP figures, with 25,000 young people aged 16-24 \u2013 a record number \u2013 starting one this year. Ministers are targeting 115,000 placements next year.<\/p>\n
McFadden\u2019s remarks and the expansion of the scheme come as Milburn warned that the country had become \u201cneglectful\u201d of a generation struggling to access work and training opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really shameful,\u201d Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, told the BBC\u2019s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme. \u201cWe as a society, and we in politics, have been neglectful of what is frankly a scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a stark assessment of Britain\u2019s welfare system, he said ministers were spending a lot more supporting young people out of work than helping them into employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor every \u00a325 that we spend keeping young people on benefits, we spend only \u00a31 helping them get into work through employment support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Construction accounted for almost 17,000 starts, making it the largest Swap sector, with employers including Manchester Airport Group, JD and Gatwick airport backing the expanded placements.<\/p>\n
Milburn said Britain faced a generational crisis. \u201cThe old contract in society was that each generation would do better than the last. So this is the first generation where that contract is being broken,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also highlighted the sharp increase in young people reporting work-limiting health conditions, especially those concerning mental health and neurodiversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a real thing, it\u2019s not a fake thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a generation living with more distress, more anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said the state had become more comfortable managing young people outside the workforce than integrating them into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real question is, just because you\u2019ve got a diagnosis or a condition, why should that lead you to being transported into a world of benefits rather than into the world of work?\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Times reported that families on benefits could be paid hundreds of pounds a month via a bursary to stop them discouraging their children aged 16 and 17 from taking apprenticeships.<\/p>\n
McFadden is understood to be looking at a targeted system to address cases in which parents are left significantly worse off when their children begin apprenticeships because they lose child benefit and elements of universal credit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers are expanding youth work-experience and training schemes, after Alan Milburn warned Britain is spending \u00a325 keeping young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-602210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}