MINISTERS are designing a new support package to help millions of unemployed Brits get back into work after the Covid crisis.

Rishi Sunak said the Department for Work and Pensions was looking at launching a new version of its Work Programme, which was deployed in 2011 to deal with mass unemployment triggered by the last recession.

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The flagship welfare-to-work scheme trained up unemployed Brits to get them off benefits and back into jobs.

It was a similar scheme to Gordon Brown’s New Deal programme to tackle youth unemployment.

The Government is braced for unemployment to hit 4 million by the end of the year.

More than 700,000 jobs have already been lost but the Government’s spending watchdog believes the numbers will accelerate when the Government’s furlough scheme is wound down at the end of this month.

Mr Sunak said: “We’re actively looking at what a version of that might be that we could put in place,” he said in a question-and-answer session with members of the public on LinkedIn.

“That will provide that intensive support to find new opportunities for those who have been unemployed for a long time, so stay tuned.”

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