Marks & Spencer is making a play for the youth vote. Or rather, the youth employment numbers. The retail giant has announced a new traineeship scheme for 1,000 young people. A bid to shore up its reputation on the high street, and maybe give the government a nudge on skills policy.
This is not charity. This is a cold calculation. The retail sector is haemorrhaging staff. Post-Brexit, post-pandemic, the labour market is tight. M&S, like every other major retailer, is struggling to fill shelves. So they are going straight to the source. School leavers, college dropouts, the NEETs. They are offering a foot in the door.
The scheme targets 18-24 year olds. Six months of on-the-job training in stores and distribution centres. A guaranteed interview at the end. No guarantees of a job, but a real chance. M&S frames it as a social mission. “We believe in developing talent,” the CEO will say. But make no mistake: this is a recruitment strategy dressed up as corporate responsibility.
The timing is telling. The government is under pressure on youth unemployment. The numbers are not catastrophic, but they are stubborn. Around 500,000 young people are out of work. The hospitality, retail, and construction sectors are screaming for staff. M&S is stepping into the breach, but also stepping on the government’s toes.
Ministers will welcome this. Quietly. Publicly, they will praise M&S as a British success story. But behind the scenes, there will be unease. Private sector schemes like this expose gaps in the government’s own training programmes. The Kickstart scheme, remember that? It was a disaster. Too slow, too bureaucratic. This M&S move is a direct contrast: agile, business-led, results-driven.
The politics of it are fascinating. Labour, the party of youth employment, is watching closely. They will demand that the scheme is expanded, maybe made mandatory for large retailers. The unions will be skeptical. They will worry about cheap labour and exploitation. M&S will be careful to avoid that trap. The scheme pays the minimum wage for trainees, but that is above what many rivals offer.
Inside M&S, this is a gamble. The company is undergoing a turnaround under Stuart Machin. Clothing sales are up, but food is struggling. The traineeship is a long-term bet on loyalty. If they get it right, they nurture a generation of future managers. If they get it wrong, it is a PR disaster and a wasted investment.
The Whitehall reaction is worth watching. The Department for Education will claim it supports their skills agenda. The Department for Work and Pensions will see it as a win for their Jobcentre Plus allies. But the real test is whether other retailers follow suit. If they do, the government can claim a policy victory without spending a penny.
For now, M&S takes the glory. The headlines are positive. “M&S leads the way on youth training.” But the pressure is on to deliver results. 1,000 places is a drop in the ocean. To have real impact, they need to scale up, and they need the government to back them with funding or regulatory support.
In the lobby, the whispers suggest this is the first move in a broader push. M&S wants to be seen as a champion of British industry and British workers. In an era of cheap foreign labour and online giants, that is a powerful narrative. The question is whether they can make it work.
For now, the traineeship is a welcome intervention. But in the harsh world of Westminster and Whitehall, everyone is watching for the catch. There is always a catch. Number 10 is already preparing a statement. Expect warm words, but little substance. The real work will be done in the department corridors, as officials scramble to align this with their own targets.
M&S has thrown down the gauntlet. Now the government has to pick it up. Or risk being outflanked on the high street and the doorstep. The game is on.
