The biggest updates in junior hiring for small businesses from chancellor Rishi Sunak’s 2021 budget
In early March chancellor Rishi Sunak announced his new budget, designed to ‘protect jobs and livelihoods’. And lucky for us, the 2021 budget update seems to be good news for small businesses!
We’re going to run you through the basics of all of the most relevant junior hiring and small business updates – from apprenticeship incentives to the new ‘help to grow’ scheme.
If you need any more advice on how to hire juniors or navigate the changes, reach out to us at hello@digitalgrads.com.
1 – Incentives to take on apprentices
The apprenticeship hiring incentive has been extended to September 2021 and the cash you get on hire has doubled to £3,000. This is great news for anyone apprehensive about hiring juniors due to money worries.
Just be sure to check that your apprentice is:
- Aged 16 to 18 years old
- Or is under 25 with an education, health and care plan or who has been in the care of their local authority
And even better news for juniors, the government also announced a new ‘flexi-job’ apprenticeship scheme, where apprentices can work under a number of employers in one sector.
If you need help finding talented apprentices, check out our hiring platform!
2 – Trainee grants
The next announcement is in a similar vein. The government will now use an extra £126 million to go towards 40,000 traineeships for 16-24 year olds in the 2021/2022 academic year.
And employers that offer this work experience will receive a £1,000 grant per trainee from the government.
This is excellent news for anyone gearing up to graduate into this gloomy employment scene.
If you want to find the right trainee for your business you can browse our eager candidates today.
3 – ‘Help to grow’ scheme
And finally, this last update is great news for SMEs!
The government’s new ‘help to grow’ scheme offers MBA-style management training for up to 130,000 leaders of SMEs.
£520 million has been set aside to help small and medium sized business leaders learn new skills through online courses from top business schools.
The scheme also offers leaders free online advice and a 50% discount on new software.
This is fantastic news for anyone looking to get ahead post-Covid restrictions and we really recommend taking full advantage of this scheme!
You can sign up to the scheme here!
4 – And in other news…
April also brings with it more employment law updates that you should be aware of! The National Minimum Wage has been both extended and increased this year.
The government also announced updates to the furlough scheme and a new visa route. The new route has been created specifically to help the UK’s Fintech sector bring in highly skilled workers from abroad much easier.
We don’t know about you but we’re happy to see that the visa process has been simplified for startups!
If you need a helping hand understanding any of the 2021 budget updates or putting them into practice in your small business, check out our hiring platform today!