A total of £60 million will be invested in a Youth Guarantee to
give all young people access to work, training or education,
Scottish Economy Secretary has confirmed.
An implementation plan for Scotland’s Youth Guarantee is
currently being developed. Funding will come from the additional
£100 million Scottish Government investment for employment and
skills announced last month.
Speaking to Parliament, Ms Hyslop set out more detail about what
the Youth Guarantee will aim to achieve.
She said:
“The young people who will make up our future workforce are among
those who have been hardest hit by this pandemic. We must support
our young people and I want to send a clear message to them
today.
“I can announce that the Scottish Government will be committing
£60m of the £100m employability fund to support Scotland’s Youth
Guarantee, targeted at those most in need of support. This will
support young people in a range of ways to help make the
transition into work.
“I will bring forward more detail on how we will use this
investment with the implementation plan, but I can say now that
it will be targeted at those most in need of support, to help
them make the transition into work.
“To succeed, we must invest quickly to support a range of
interventions to keep young people in work in the next few weeks,
to encourage employers to recruit more young people, and to
ensure we have enough provision in colleges and elsewhere in the
system to prepare young people for future opportunities.
“We must work collaboratively across the private sector, third
sector and public sector to ensure no one is left behind, and
give them every opportunity in life.
“We want employers to have a clear leadership role. I will
encourage employers in all sectors to come forward and support
what I see as a crucial intervention to prevent coronavirus
(COVID-19) leaving a lasting impact on the employment
opportunities of our young people, but also to recognise and
promote the valuable and positive role that young people have to
play in our economy.”
The Youth Guarantee was one of the main recommendations of the
Advisory Group on Economic Recovery. The implementation plan is
currently being developed by Sandy Begbie, who chaired the
Developing the Young Workforce Group in Edinburgh, East Lothian
and Midlothian and helped design the Edinburgh Guarantee for
young people.
Background:
A total of £100 million for
employment support and training was announced last month to
tackle employment challenges. £10 million of this will be used to
support a range of
measures to recruit and retain apprentices.
Last week the Flexible Workforce
Development Fund was doubled to £20 million, to allow
employers to upskill and reskill workers for new markets. A
further £1.5 million was announced for Business Gateway’s Digital
Boost programme to help SMEs adapt to new online digital market
challenges – almost trebling the capacity of the initiative for
the remainder of this financial year.
