Rishi Sunak to offer hope to Britain’s growing unemployed

UK finance minister's £238m jobs scheme will help those out of work for more than three months

Rishi Sunak  in an image posted on his instagram account, rehearsing ahead of the Conservative Party Conference. Mr Sunak says a second lockdown has the potential to cripple both the economy and socieShow more

Britain’s finance minister Rishi Sunak will unveil his £238 million ($307.4m) jobs scheme today and pledge that nobody who loses their job will be left without hope.

Mr Sunak will outline how “fresh opportunities” will be available to everyone out of work at a virtual Conservative Party conference speech this morning, where he is expected to set out how he will reboot the economy and solve soaring unemployment levels.

Mr Sunak's pledge comes as he conceded that a second lockdown has the potential to cripple both the economy and society.

"Lockdowns obviously have a very strong economic impact, but they have an impact on many other things," the finance minister told The Sun in an interview ahead of his speech.

“We have to look at this all in the round and beating coronavirus is important and minimising the harm that it causes is important. But there are other things that are important. Kids not being in school for months . . . if university students’ learning is impacted that’s not a good thing.”

Mr Sunak’s £238m entry targeted support scheme will help jobseekers who have been out of work for at least three months and claiming a range of different benefits.

Work coaches will also be hired by the Department for Work and Pensions to help people return to employment by offering specialist advice on how to move into growing sectors, as well as CV and interview tutorials. It is recruiting an additional 13,500 coaches to help deliver the programme.

It is understood Mr Sunak may also end the fuel duty freeze and raise taxes for the self-employed.

Economists expect unemployment to soar in the coming months as wage support is scaled back, after hitting 4.1 per cent in the second quarter of the year. Analysts expect jobless rates to peak at 8.9 per cent in the fourth quarter, before dropping back again in 2021 as the UK economy recovers from the crisis.

Meanwhile, UK redundancies rose at their fastest rate since 2009 this summer, with struggling companies laying off more than 150,000 staff in the second quarter of the year. Nearly 700,000 workers have been dropped from company payrolls since March, according to the government statistics.

Mr Sunak first set out the government's new support scheme to save millions of jobs and businesses from a winter crisis last month as the number of new Covid-19 cases soared to new highs. The new jobs initiative will replace the existing furlough scheme, which has cost the government £39.3bn as of September 20.