Recommendation 7

The Department had aimed for Kickstart to have achieved 250,000 job starts by 31 December 2021, the initial closing date for new job placements to begin.24 In practice, take up of the scheme was slower than the Department expected; by mid-December 2021 there had been 110,000 starts, with more than 200,000 vacancies still waiting to be filled.25 The Department is now aiming for 168,000 starts by 31 March 2022, the new deadline for job placements to begin.26 The Department attributed this slower than expected progress to a range of factors, including the extension of the furlough scheme (reducing the anticipated surge in unemployment), the reintroduction of national lockdown in early 2021 (reducing the ability of employers to expand their workforce), and the reopening of the economy in summer 2021 (enabling many young people to find jobs themselves on the open market).27