BUDGET FACTSHEET: PLAN FOR JOBS

What does this Budget do to protect and support jobs?

• Extending the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to 30 September 2021. Employees will continue to receive 80% of their current salary for hours not worked. 
• Six-month extension of £20 Universal Credit uplift and a one-off payment of £500 to Working Tax Credit claimants.
• Extension of the apprenticeship hiring incentive to September 2021 and an increase of payment to £3,000.
• A new “flexi-job” apprenticeship programme to be created from a £7 million fund, which will enable apprentices to work with several employers in one sector.
• £126 million in additional support for 40,000 more traineeships in England, funding high quality work placements and training for 16-24-year olds in 2021-22.
• £1.3 million over 2021-22 and 2022-23 to pilot the use of new technologies to support people in or out of work to find new job opportunities which are best suited to their skills and experience.

What are you doing to support self-employed people?

• Extending the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) until 30 September 2021 with a fourth and fifth grant. In a major improvement in access to the self-employed scheme, more than 600,000 people, many of whom became self-employed in 2019-20, may now be able to claim direct cash grants under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.  
• The fourth SEISS grant will be worth 80% of average monthly trading profits, paid out in a single instalment covering three months’ worth of annual profits, and capped at £7,500 in total. The scheme will open for claims in late April. 
• The fifth SEISS grant providing support in the summer will include a turnover test to target support towards those most affected by the pandemic.
• The latest grants bring the total support provided to self-employed during the crisis to £34 billion.

What are you doing to support businesses to protect jobs? 

• A new Restart Grant – a one off cash grant of up to £18,000 for hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym businesses in England.
• Extension to the VAT cut to 5% for hospitality, accommodation and tourism.
• Extension of business rates holiday meaning over 350,000 business properties in retail, hospitality and leisure will now not pay rates for three months
• A new UK-wide Recovery Loan Scheme to make available between £25,000 and £10 million to help businesses of all sizes through the next stage of recovery.

These new measures build on the support already available through the Plan for Jobs which includes:

• £46.6 billion worth of support to date through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), helping pay the wages of 11.2 million people.
• £18.9 billion through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), supporting 2.7 million self-employed workers.
• £1.4 billion additional funding in 2021-22 to sustain the doubling of the number of work coaches to 27,000. 
• £2 billion Kickstart Scheme to help hundreds of thousands of young people at risk of long-term unemployment.
• Raft of new job support schemes including Job Finding Support offer, Job Entry Targeted Support scheme and the Sector-Based Work Academy Programme (SWAPs).
• £2.9 billion Restart programme to provide intensive and tailored support to over 1 million unemployed people.
• £375 million to help adults to upskill and reskill to boost their job prospects