PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: Young People (5 July 2021)

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate he has made of (a) the proportion of people on furlough who are aged under 25 and (b) the number of people aged under 25 who are at risk of unemployment once that scheme ends.

Asked by:
Alison McGovern (Labour)

HM Revenue & Customs publish statistics on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme regularly. The latest statistics were published on 1 July 2021 and can be found on GOV.UK.

Figures from these statistics show that on 31 May 2021, 14% of jobs on furlough (or 322,400) were held by an employee aged under 25. These are provisional figures.

HMRC have not made an estimate of the number of people aged under 25 who are at risk of unemployment once that scheme ends.

Recognising the impact the pandemic has had on young people, the Government has put in place a comprehensive package of support to help young people find work. This includes the £2bn Kickstart Scheme, which will create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people, and the new Youth Offer, which provides a guaranteed foundation of support to all 18-24 year olds on Universal Credit in the Intensive Work Search group.

The Government has also made significant investment in skills and training support to help young people build the skills they need to find work. This includes the expansion of traineeships for 16-24 year olds, a bespoke offer for school leavers to take high value Level 2 and 3 courses, and increased apprenticeship incentives for employers, with £3,000 for each new apprentice hired between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021.

Answered by:
Jesse Norman (Conservative)
8 July 2021