The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is celebrating forcing young people into low-paying jobs at McDonald’s. This is alongside it slashing unemployment benefits and wanting to make under-22s ineligible for benefits.
The DWP bragged that McDonald’s is the latest company to join their Youth Guarantee scheme. The Youth Guarantee is the brainchild of the department and chancellor Rachel Reeves.
DWP making kids live’s hell
While the scheme to get kids into employment seems good, this is Labour, so there’s a catch. While Youth Guarantee is their broad plan to get kids into work, a subsection of it will force them into it.
Under the Jobs Guarantee, Anyone aged 18 to 21 who’s been on Universal Credit for over 18 months will be ‘offered’ an apprenticeship. If the claimant refuses this offer, they will see their benefits stopped.
The jobs are also apprenticeships and work placements, so that means they’ll be working for shit pay and potentially precarious length contracts.
That means the government is going to force young people into crap jobs regardless of their ambitions and health. Companies who jumped at the chance to exploit young people include B&M, Tesco, and KFC.
It’s not just badly paid retail jobs, though, the government also wants to make your kids cannon fodder. Following a jobs fair that was packed to the rafters with military and weapons companies, many signed up to the scheme, including Make UK, which has a ‘defence sector’ offshoot. Their ‘strategic partners’ are a who’s who of Israel genocide enablers and supporters.
Oh, and Severn Trent is involved too. As *the Canary’*s Hannah Sharland previously exposed, Severn Trent already has murky ties to the DWP. The water company capitalised on the Universal Credit deductions scheme, which robbed claimants of their vital benefits to line the pockets of wealthy CEO’s.
McDonald’s getting in on cheap labour
And now the fast food brand will be the latest company to take advantage of the government forcing young people into dead-end jobs for shit pay.
The DWP said”
From August, McDonald’s will roll out 2,500 paid work experience placements across the country, with 625 places ring-fenced for young people most at risk of dropping out of education and work.
While this sounds great, it once again means the DWP will force vulnerable kids who are at risk of having their benefits stopped into crap jobs:
Placements will span the full breadth of its business, from restaurants to corporate head office roles, giving young people five days of hands-on experience across a range of careers, with a guaranteed interview at the end.
Oh, cool, so it won’t just be flipping burgers on an apprentice wage, but a full office job too.
But of course, Macca’s aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They’ll probably be well aware of the Youth Jobs Grant, which entitles businesses to £3,000 for every young person they hire who’s been on Universal Credit for six months or more.
Newsflash: McDonald’s are abuse and genocide enablers
McDonald’s is notoriously a terrible place to work. In 2025, over 100 current and former employees reported experiences of sexual assault, harassment, racism, homophobia, and bullying. In the BBC report, this is exactly the age range that were most risk, with teenagers reporting groping and being propositioned for sex in return for good shifts.
As well as being notoriously shit to their employers, McDonald’s also supports genocide. In 2023 they gave free meals to thousands of Israeli soldiers. They’ve been on the boycott list since then, with Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) saying:
McDonald’s Israeli franchisee has supported the Israeli occupation forces with free McDonald’s meals during the ongoing genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, prompting the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian coalition that leads the global BDS movement, to endorse the organic, grassroots-led worldwide boycott campaigns targeting McDonald’s to end complicity in apartheid Israel’s crimes.
And unfortunately, kids are going to have no choice but to work for these bastards if they’re told to by the DWP. They’ll be forced between losing their benefits and starving to death and working somewhere they could be abused and sexually assaulted.
The DWP is literally putting kids at risk by handing them over to McDonald’s. This just shows once again that the government doesn’t care what happens to poor people, as long as they don’t have to pay for them.
Featured image via the Canary
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