Tackling Youth Unemployment: What Works?

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has published 3 research reports on youth unemployment this month.

The first, available to download from here, is a narrative review of the effectiveness of training schemes targeted at young people with low qualifications. It’s a peristent feature of such schemes that they are not designed to allow for a full evaluation of their impact (something which the report recommends should be remedied in the design of future programmes). Looking at the references in the report, there also appears to be little peer-reviewed material on this topic.

The report concludes that there are ‘mixed results’ about effectiveness but also says that training schemes ‘in general often deliver poor results’. There is some evidence that those in their 20s benefit more than teenagers.

The recommendations for future training schemes include that they should:

• be tightly targeted and address wider barriers to employment
• focus on supporting transitions to employment
• be local and small-scale
• be joined up with other support available.