The claim uses a superlative — "the best way" — asserting that supported six-month jobs are the most effective approach for getting long-term unemployed young people into work. The evidence does not support this strong claim; in fact, it points in the opposite direction. 1. **The UK's own evidence on the predecessor scheme (Kickstart) shows modest, not dominant, effects.** The government's quantitative impact assessment of the Kickstart Scheme — which provided six-month subsidised jobs to 16–24 year olds on Universal Credit, very similar to the Jobs Guarantee — found that for every 100 participants, an additional 11 were in unsubsidised employment at two years compared to non-participants. While positive, 54% of participants would have found employment anyway, and 35% were still not in employment at two years even with the scheme. This is a beneficial intervention, but not a decisively effective one. 2. **Multiple systematic reviews find other intervention types outperform subsidised employment.** A 2026 ILO systematic review of active labour market programmes (ALMPs) for youth found that "entrepreneurship promotion and skills training interventions reported larger impacts than employment services and subsidized employment programmes." Critically, for high-income countries specifically, "skills training interventions reported the largest impacts… particularly on employment outcomes." A Campbell systematic review similarly found "significant effects for entrepreneurship promotion and skills training, but not for employment services and subsidized employment." These findings directly contradict the claim that subsidised employment is "the best way." 3. **The IFS raises serious concerns about deadweight and limited reach.** The IFS notes that only 19% of 16–24 year olds on UC unemployed for 6 months are still on the benefit 18 months later, meaning most find work without wage subsidies — suggesting substantial deadweight. Even if all planned placements were fully additional, the NEET rate would only fall from 12.8% to 12.1%. 4. **International evidence on hiring subsidies is mixed.** A Belgian study found positive but short-lived effects for high school dropouts and complete deadweight loss in tight labour markets. A Ugandan experiment published in *Econometrica* found vocational training more effective than firm-provided training (subsidised employment with training). **Conclusion:** The evidence shows that supported six-month jobs have a positive but modest effect on youth employment outcomes. They are not established as "the best way" — and the strongest available systematic review evidence indicates that skills training and entrepreneurship programmes tend to produce larger impacts, particularly in high-income country contexts like the UK. The claim's superlative framing is not supported and is actively contradicted by comparative evidence. Sources: - GOV.UK, "Kickstart Scheme: A Quantitative Impact Assessment" — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/kickstart-scheme-a-quantitative-impact-assessment/kickstart-scheme-a-quantitative-impact-assessment - ILO, "The impact of active labour market programmes on youth" (2026) — https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2026-04/SR%20report_2026.pdf - Campbell Collaboration, "Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of youth: A systematic review" — https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/camsys/v13y2017i1p1-288.html - IFS, "Assessing the government's youth employment package" — https://ifs.org.uk/articles/assessing-governments-youth-employment-package - Alfonso et al., "Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence From a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda," *Econometrica* (2020) — https://www.econometricsociety.org/publications/econometrica/2020/11/01/tackling-youth-unemployment-evidence-labor-market-experiment/file/ecta200213.pdf - GOV.UK, "Jobs Guarantee" — https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/jobs-guarantee