The Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP’s) Kickstart Scheme provides fully funded job placements for those 16 24-year-olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long-term unemployment.
Funding includes 100% of the relevant National Minimum Wage
(or the National Living Wage dependent on the age of the young person) for 25 hours per week for 6 months. Associated National Insurance and automatic enrolment pension contributions are also included in the funding.
Success to date
So far over 7 00 Kickstart gateways signed up to the scheme and
over 110,000 job placements approved with more being approved every day.
Employers from across the public, private and non-for profit sectors are already signed up to provide Kickstart job placements, creating a rich and diverse range of opportunities.
Job placements in a wide range of sectors including financial, sports, beauty, retail, forestry, and many more are already signed up, ready to help get young people back into work.
How does it work?
Young people are at the heart of the Kickstart Scheme, which aims to:
• Fund the creation of additional job placements
• Build the confidence and skills of young people
• Help them gain experience that will improve their chances of finding future employment.
Employers will need to provide support to improve a young person’s employability throughout their job placement, as a springboard to a more permanent role.
A grant of £1,500 per job placement is available to support this training.
A further £360 are given to Kickstart gateways to help with administration costs.
What difference does it make?
We know that, young people have been severely affected by the current economic situation; they are vulnerable to future job losses and are disproportionately more likely to be furloughed. It is expected the pandemic’s impact on young people’s employment will continue to worsen.
The DWP recognises that some young people may require additional support to get back into work.
The scheme benefits employers and young people by providing a high-quality meaningful job placement alongside support that will significantly reduce the risks of their working lives being scarred by long-term unemployment.
Why kickstart?
• Opportunity to upskill a whole new generation.
• Provides a good opportunity to try out new talent and to identify potential candidates for apprenticeships and/or permanent employment.
• A pivotal part of how we can respond to the impact of Covid-19 and rebuild our economy with a skilled workforce.
• This generation faces an unprecedented challenge for the future and we have a collective responsibility to support them onto the career ladder.
• We have made it much easier to apply for Kickstart job placements, by making it easier for SMEs to participate as well as improving the assessment and approval process for applications.
