Chancellor is right to put in place help for those out of work for long periods as they often struggle most in periods of high unemployment 24 November 2020 Commenting on the announcement of the new Restart Scheme today (Tuesday) on the eve of the Spending Review, Nye Cominetti, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “The Chancellor is right to put in place help for those out of work for long periods as they often struggle most in periods of high unemployment. The new three-year Restart scheme rightly recognises that the task of tackling the scarring effects of Covid on the labour market will continue long after a vaccine is rolled out. “The Restart Scheme is a big step up in terms of job support. The £2.9 billion allocated for the coming three years exceeds that spent on the Work Programme over five years after the financial crisis. But for the new approach to be effective, Ministers must learn lessons from the patchy record of that scheme, particularly the need for more intensive support for harder-to-help groups, who were too often side-lined.”
