UK Treasury Chief Plans Boost to Youth Jobs

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak stands outside No 11 Downing Street and holds up the traditional red box that contains the budget speech for the media, he will then leave to make budget speech to House of Commons, in London on March 11, 2020. Sunak is set to announce Wednesday a 2 billion pound ($2.5 billion) program to create jobs for young people as the government tries to revive an economy battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

LONDON—British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak on Wednesday is set to announce a 2-billion-pound ($2.5 billion) program to create jobs for young people as the government tries to revive an economy battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Announcement of the funding, which will create government-subsidized minimum wage jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds, comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans for a “New Deal” similar to the program President Franklin D. Roosevelt created to help the U.S. bounce back from the Great Depression.