Conservatives announce plans to remove barriers to summer jobs for young people

• Conservatives build on plans to save the summer job by giving young people more flexibility around breaks and shift patterns, while simplifying evening working restrictions at weekends and outside term-time.

• These changes build on plans announced last month to repeal restrictions on Sunday working and scrap the need for a Child Employment Permit.

• The Conservatives' plan will cut unnecessary red tape that stops young people getting a summer job, while protecting their education.

The Conservatives have today [Tuesday 18 August 2026] announced plans to further remove barriers to young people entering work, giving them more flexibility over shift patterns and breaks and simplifying restrictions on evening working.

These outdated regulations, inherited from the EU's Working Time Directive, place unnecessary restrictions on young people's ability to work. Repealing them is a benefit of Brexit and will give young people greater freedom to gain valuable work experience.

Labour is making it harder for young people to get a foot on the career ladder. Its first two Budgets raised taxes by more than £60 billion, including through higher employers' National Insurance contributions, while businesses face unnecessary barriers to employing under-18s.

Labour's damaging Employment Rights Act is piling further pressure on seasonal businesses and making it harder for them to recruit. The Conservatives will scrap its job-destroying measures, abolish business rates for 250,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, and introduce our Cheap Power Plan to cut business electricity bills by 20 per cent.

Under Labour, unemployment has risen every month, with figures out today expected to show no let-up, including in youth unemployment. More than one million young people are currently not in education, employment or training, because of Labour's disastrous economic decisions. Despite their warm words, Labour has done little to tackle the problem. That is why the Conservatives have launched the Save the Summer Job' campaign, to give more young people their first step on the employment ladder.

Under the Conservatives' plan, 16- and 17-year-olds and employers would have greater flexibility over when breaks are taken, allowing them to be taken at any point during a shift. Young people in full-time education or training would be able to work until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays during term-time and without restriction during holidays. The required 48 consecutive hours off work in any seven-day period would also be reduced to 24 hours.

Andrew Griffith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said: 

A generation of young people risks being locked out of work because of unnecessary red tape, higher taxes and economic uncertainty. 

Simplifying rules about when young people can work and take breaks will help save the summer job and give employers the confidence they need to hire a young person. 

Only the Conservatives have the team and the plan to Get Britain Working Again and stand up for summer jobs by slashing unnecessary red tape and scrapping the job-destroying parts of the Employment Rights Act, alongside abolishing business rates for most high-street and hospitality businesses and delivering our Cheap Power Plan to cut business energy costs by 20%. 

ENDS

Notes to Editors: 

Labour have locked 16-17 yeat olds out of the rewards of work:

• Britain has the third highest rate of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) in European OECD countries, including Greece. A report by the Resolution Foundation found that the NEET rate in Britain is higher than all other OECD countries in Europe aside from Italy and Lithuania. This means our NEET rate is higher than Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia (The Guardian, 28 April 2026, link),

• Anna Leach, Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors, said that government policies are choking off work opportunities for young people'. LEACH: Today's data paints a picture of a soft labour market, with private sector pay growth dropping below 3 per cent for the first time since 2020 and weak vacancy levels. Low levels of employer demand for labour unfortunately reflect a combination of government policies which have increased the cost and risk associated with hiring employees. This is choking off work opportunities for young people in particular, as jobs continue to decline in important youth employment sectors such as accommodation and food and retail' (IoD, Press Release, 18 June 2026, link).

• Since the Working Time Regulations 1998 were introduced, Britain's 16-17 year old employment rate has plummeted by 43 per cent. The Working Time Regulations were introduced in 1998, when the 16-17 year old employment rate for those not in full time education was 65.2 per cent. In Q1 of 2026, it is 21.8 per cent, meaning it has fallen by 43.4 per cent to its lowest ever quarterly level (ONS, Employment rate 16-17 (not in full time education), 21 July 2026, link).

• Over a million young people are not in education, employment or training, up by 91,030 on Labour's watch. There were 1,012,228 young people aged 16 to 24 who were not in education, employment or training in January to March 2026, up from 921,198 in April to June 2024 when the Conservatives left office, denying young people the opportunities they deserve (Office for National Statistics, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK: May 2026, 28 May 2026, link).

The Milburn review said the decline of work for 16-17 year olds have disappeared':

• The Milburn Review said that work for young people provided income [and] helped young people build confidence, learn the habits of work and show employers what they could do', but that the opportunities of work for young people are weaker or have disappeared altogether'. The Milburn Review said: It is that the routes into work have narrowed. The first rung has thinned. The clearest examples are the decline of the Saturday job and the way the apprenticeship system has drifted away from young people. For earlier generations, these were often the routes through which young people first entered working life. They provided income, but they also helped young people build confidence, learn the habits of work and show employers what they could do. For too many young people now, those opportunities are weaker or have disappeared altogether' (DWP, Young people and work: interim report, 19 June 2026, link).

We will cut the red tape which stops employers from hiring 16-17 year olds and restricts flexibility by:

• Removing stringent break restrictions which mandate when breaks are taken. Under Regulation 12(4) of the Working Time Regulations, workers aged 16-17 must take a 30-minute break following any four-and-a-half-hour period of work. We will amend the Regulations, so they match those of workers aged 18 and over who receive a 20-minute break accrued by all workers whose daily working time is more than 6 hours. This will cut the administrative burden of tracking the hours worked by young people and give them more flexibility to take a break when best suits them (The Working Time Regulations 1998, accessed 14 August 2026, link).

• Giving 16-17 year olds the flexibility to work later nights on the weekend during term time and any hours they want outside term time. Currently, Regulation 6A and 2 (interpretation) mandates that young people must not work between 10pm and 6am, or between 11pm and 7am if that is specified in their contract. We will amend these regulations to remove the night-working restrictions entirely outside of term time and to allow 16-17 year olds to work until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, allowing them to take jobs closing down bars (The Working Time Regulations 1998, accessed 14 August 2026, link).

• Removing the requirement for 16-17 year olds to take a rest period of 48 consecutive hours in any seven day period. Currently, Regulation 11(3) states that 1617-year-olds must be entitled to a rest period of not less than 48 hours in each seven day working period. We will remove this requirement and equalise the law with those aged over 18, so that employers only have to offer a 24 hour rest period in any 7 day period (The Working Time Regulations 1998, accessed 14 August 2026, link).