Bribing firms to hire us is an insult to young workers like me
The government’s plans to subsidise companies to hire young workers is a sticking plaster over the self-inflicted wound that is youth unemployment, says Oliver Dean
Pat McFadden, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, recently announced that the government will launch a £1bn scheme to shift young people away from unemployment and welfare and into work. The reforms come at a time when young people are faced with dire career prospects amid a rapidly shrinking and hyper-competitive job market. Yet, while the government has rightly identified youth worklessness as a major problem scarring society, to propose subsidies as a solution is a kick in the teeth for my generation. The government must make Britain a place where businesses can invest in skills and workers instead.
Under the government’s plans, firms will receive a £3,000 grant for every person they take on who are aged between 18 and 24 who has been looking for a job for six months or more. Ministers hope that, as a result of these reforms, 60,000 young people will move into the labour market over the next three years. Simultaneously, the government will also move to expand government-supported foundation apprenticeships into the hospitality and retail sectors too.
Everyone agrees that moving young people off of welfare and into work is a fundamentally good thing – and this announcement shows that the government is, at the very least, listening. They recognise the joblessness crisis, and are taking steps to address it. However, this is where the niceties end.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of these measures is that they exist to fix a problem Labour not only created, but exacerbated. According to research by the Centre for Policy Studies, the cost of hiring a full-time minimum wage worker over 21 has risen by £3,414. For those aged 18 to 20, it is even steeper, sitting at £4,095. A toxic combination of tax hikes and new employment legislation has made hiring any worker significantly more expensive, and this has hit younger people hardest.
Throttling business
Employer national insurance hikes, paired with a rising minimum wage, have throttled business growth before it can even begin. The tax burden per employee has jumped by 68 per cent, which highlights just how aggressively anti-competitive this government is.
Yet, this is only half of the story. Britain is simultaneously gripped by a ‘sick note culture’ that has sent the welfare state into turmoil. The Centre for Social Justice reports that roughly 40,000 people are signed off work every single day, with around 11m fit notes issued during 2025. At the same time, a recentBBC investigation found that hundreds of GPs say they have “never refused to sign a patient off for mental health issues”. True, if Britain continues down its current path, welfare spending is expected to reach £75.7bn by 2030 – a sharp increase from £48.5bn in 2024. When worklessness becomes normalised in such a way, is it any wonder young people are drifting out of the labour market entirely?
The way forward is not more handouts – in fact, it is the opposite. The solution must be to rein in a welfare state that has spiralled out of control. It also means cutting the tax burden that has made so employment expensive, and building an economy in which businesses are genuinely championed rather than punished at every opportunity.
The government is right to recognise that it has a crisis on its hands. But to argue that the solution is to bribe firms to hire young people is insulting. It is imperative that the government recognise that the mess it is facing is as a result of its own policies. Until it reverses such polices, and makes Britain a place where businesses want to invest in through competitive tax rates and less burdensome regulation, then the problem will only get worse.
Oliver Dean is a political commentator with Young Voices UK. He studies History and Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he is the President of the LSE Hayek Society