TUC Chief Warns Tackling UK Youth Jobs Crisis Requires Far Greater Investment

Solving Britain's youth unemployment crisis will demand a major increase in investment in employment support and a refusal to impose arbitrary benefit cuts, the leader of the trade union movement has warned.

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, told the Guardian that the government has a "once in a generation chance" to secure the futures of young people. He spoke ahead of the Milburn review into young people and work, an official report expected in the coming week.

Nowak argued that the costs of expanded job support, education and training would be more than offset by economic gains that would relieve pressure on the welfare state. "There is no solution that is cost-free," he said. "The government is going to have to be prepared to invest in securing the future of those young people, but also to invest to secure what is the future of our economy."

He added that while investing in physical infrastructure is right, the country must also invest in "social infrastructure too." His intervention comes as ministers await the report by Alan Milburn, the former Labour health secretary, which is expected to recommend welfare cuts to fund job support for almost a million young people not in education, employment or training, known as Neet.

The report was pushed back until after the budget, amid concerns that a call for welfare cuts would clash with the tax and spending plans of the chancellor, John Healey. Andy Burnham has described the surge in young people classed as Neet as an "economic catastrophe and a moral failure," and has said tougher benefits rules alongside more help for young people will feature in his government's response to the Milburn report.

The prime minister has taken a cautious stance to avoid a repeat of the welfare rebellion that forced Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves into an embarrassing and costly U-turn on planned disability benefit cuts within a year of taking power. Nowak urged Burnham to focus on delivering a step change in employment support, saying increased investment would shrink the benefits bill by moving more young people into work.

"We can't afford to not do this stuff, as the benefits bill will go up if young people are not supported," Nowak said. He added that he did not believe the government would repeat the earlier failed attempt at benefit reform, which involved arbitrary cuts that hit vulnerable people without a plan to support them into work.

Public concern is growing. Polling by the research company Focaldata for the Jobs Foundation shows most Britons now view the youth jobs crisis as one of the country's biggest problems, ranking it second only to the cost of living and above NHS waiting lists, housing, crime and immigration.

The Jobs Foundation, an employment charity co-founded by the Conservative peer Matthew Elliott, launches a national campaign to tackle worklessness on Monday. It includes a pledge from leading employers, among them Amazon, Pret a Manger, NatWest, Marks & Spencer and Shell, to support young people overlooked for work.

A government spokesperson said: "We are determined to turn the tide on youth unemployment which has been years in the making." The spokesperson pointed to a £2.5bn pledge in youth employment support set to deliver almost 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, and to engagement with major retail and hospitality brands to create up to 200,000 jobs for young people, adding that further reform would follow the Milburn review, due to be published in the autumn.