The John Lewis Partnership has pledged to offer 1,000 more roles to young people who have been in care as it steps up efforts to support disadvantaged jobseekers.
The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose said the commitment, which will be delivered by 2030, more than doubles its previous target under its Building Happier Futures programme.
The move will take the total number of roles offered through the initiative to at least 250 a year.
It comes amid growing concern over youth unemployment, with more than a million young people in the UK not in employment, education or training, while recent official figures showed youth unemployment had reached an 11-year high.
John Lewis Partnership chairman Jason Tarry said retail still had an important role to play in giving young people their first opportunity in work.
“Retail has long offered that all-important first foot on the career ladder. It’s vital that we continue stepping up to support young people, especially those facing significant barriers to employment,” he said.
Tarry said care leavers were among those most exposed to long-term worklessness, housing instability and involvement in the criminal justice system.
The Building Happier Futures programme, which launched in 2022, is designed for young people who have grown up in foster care, children’s homes or under local authority guardianship.
Since launch, the scheme has helped more than 450 care-experienced young people into jobs, alongside 1,700 welcome visits and 1,200 job shadowing placements across the group’s shops, warehouses, offices and hotels.
The retailer said many of the new roles will be permanent positions, aimed at helping young people build longer-term careers.
Where roles are seasonal or fixed term, participants will still receive tailored employability support to help build confidence, skills and future job prospects.
The programme is delivered by trained “care aware” employees across John Lewis and Waitrose sites. The partnership said standard recruitment schemes often failed to account for the barriers faced by care leavers, including limited work experience and weaker informal networks.
Tarry also called on the government to do more to help businesses tackle youth unemployment.
He urged ministers to open up the growth and skills levy, which is funded by employer contributions, so that it can be used for short pre-employment training programmes.
The partnership said many young people, particularly those from disrupted educational backgrounds, needed support with CV writing, interview preparation, digital literacy and basic workplace skills before they were ready to enter formal roles.
Tarry also warned that recent changes to publicly funded apprenticeships could make it harder for young people to progress into management roles.
He said removing or narrowing routes into management-level qualifications risked limiting career development for those who had not followed traditional academic paths.
The John Lewis Partnership is also pushing for employer and government youth employment schemes to be scaled nationally, rather than remain as standalone pilots.
Tarry said voluntary action from employers would not be enough on its own.
“We’re sharing what we’ve learned to help other businesses develop tailored programmes. But we need the government to act too,” he said.
“Unlocking growth and skills levy funding for pre-employment training would drive action at a scale that goodwill alone cannot reach.”
Tarry added that the commitment reflected the partnership’s employee-owned model, arguing that investing in young people’s prospects also strengthened the business.
It said it also plans to take part in the government’s jobs guarantee scheme, which funds six-month paid placements with training and mentoring for young people who need their first step into work.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
