Alliance: Northern Ireland needs a ‘Kickstart’ scheme to help young people get jobs

The claimant count could well exceed 100,000 by the end of the year. History teaches us that in recessions young people are hardest hit. Over a third of that number could fall with the 18-24 years range, with over 33,000 young people affected. Youth unemployment peaked at 24% after the financial crash.

On the 8th July, the Chancellor announced numerous economic interventions in his summer statement. One of them was a youth employment scheme called ‘Kickstart’ designed specifically to help young people get jobs and gain experience. Whilst Covid-19 was, and still is, a health emergency, it is now very much an economic emergency. This week the scheme went live in Great Britain.

Kickstart involves employers providing placements for young people with government the national minimum wage for 25 hours per week. Employers are free to top this up. The hope would be that those employers would retain their employees after six months.

In Northern Ireland, this falls into the devolved space, and the responsibility falls to the Department for Communities, the home of the Employment Service. A significant Barnett Consequential falls to the NI Executive from the investment in Great Britain.

Alliance has been pressing for local action on youth unemployment since the early Spring, and specifically for the introduction of a Kickstart equivalent since July.

We are now in September and there is still no programme in Northern Ireland. Our young people are being left behind.

Time lost through inaction from the Communities Minister, Carál Ní Chuilín, means that many young people will be trying to look for employment as the first wave of redundancies hit as the furlough scheme ends in October. Amidst ongoing business uncertainty and job opportunities collapsing, it creates the perfect storm for the class of 2020 who will be hardest hit and find it most difficult to get work and risk being permanently economically disadvantaged if no action is urgently taken.

The Department has now indicated that in principle they are seeking to introduce such a scheme here. But they are now playing catch up. The longer this is left, then the more challenging it will be to act and to spend the available resources before the end of the financial year.

In Northern Ireland, we have the option of designing our own local scheme. Back in 2012, Stephen Farry, when he was Minister for Employment, introduced the Youth Employment Scheme. That involved wage subsides which could allow the resources to be stretched further.

However given the time that has passed, the simpler and more realistic approach, may be for a local decision to be taken for Northern Ireland to opt into the existing GB scheme.

Unless action is taken, we risk reduced life prospects, increased mental health challenges, under-utilised skills and long-term damage to the economy.

Our young people deserve at least the same opportunities as their counterparts in Great Britain.

• Sorcha Eastwood is an Alliance councillor in Lisburn & Castlereagh

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