Bars, clubs and restaurants will offer up to 100,000 hospitality jobs to young people not in employment, education or training over the next three years, in a pledge aimed at giving them a first step into work. Andy Burnham will launch the initiative during a visit to a hospitality venue on Thursday.

How the scheme works

The Department for Work and Pensions is involved, alongside hospitality businesses including the restaurant chains Wagamama, Nando's and Burger King, the hotel chain Premier Inn and pub chains including Fuller's and Mitchells & Butlers. Neets aged 18 to 24 will be offered placements of up to four weeks, meant to build the skills and confidence needed to take a first step into work.

• •Placements run for up to four weeks for Neets aged 18 to 24
• •Participating firms include Wagamama, Nando's, Burger King, Premier Inn, Fuller's and Mitchells & Butlers
• •The hospitality scheme follows a similar DWP scheme for retailers announced last month, involving Marks & Spencer, Asda, Pets at Home and the John Lewis Partnership

Government response

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden said the scheme would help young people "get their first step on the ladder" and build their careers. He pointed to the UK employment rate, which he said is now the second highest in the G7, and said the scheme will unlock 100,000 jobs.

Milburn review and welfare backdrop

The move comes ahead of a report on Neets by the former health secretary Alan Milburn. On his own earlier estimate, failing to act would let the total of 16-to-24-year-olds outside work and classrooms in the UK climb towards 1.25 million within five years. His full review, with recommendations to government, is expected soon after the autumn budget on 28 October.

Milburn has signalled that Britain's benefits system should be overhauled, alongside measures to boost job support, training and apprenticeships. Among his earlier proposals is an England-wide programme that would prepare school leavers for apprenticeships, bridging the stretch between the classroom and a first job.

• •Ministers are considering scrapping a critical disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support
• •Chancellor John Healey has indicated a readiness to curtail the government's rising benefits bill
• •McFadden has framed a welfare overhaul as both a moral duty and an economic one, pointing to pressure on the public finances from the war in the Middle East
• •Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told Burnham in prime minister's questions on Wednesday that he should cut welfare to fund higher defence spending
• •Ministers hope to avoid a repeat of the welfare rebellion that forced Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves into an embarrassing and costly U-turn

School exclusions review

Education secretary Lucy Powell is expected to announce a review of school exclusion changes. Research shows students who are persistently absent from school are nearly four times more likely to end up unemployed. A consultation will gather views on measures to support students at risk of exclusion, improve integration into the classroom and keep children engaged.

Powell said: "Absence and exclusion are too often a path to disengagement, with increased risks of becoming Neet." She warned: "Too many young people who fall out of education risk being permanently left on the sidelines of work and opportunity."

Milburn's full review, with recommendations to government, is expected soon after the autumn budget on 28 October.