Where is the help for the graduates of 2020 and beyond, Mr Sunak?

The Kickstart promise unveiled today will offer hope for all those young people currently on Universal Credit but for tens of thousands more, it could feel like a kick in the teeth.

While the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is rightly concerned to support the 500,000 16-24 year olds out of work – and is offering a generous £2bn pay check to cover their wages for the next six months – those young people who are not currently on Universal Credit won’t be eligible.

This means current students and 2020 graduates will be left without support and wondering why they have been forgotten.

Having loaded themselves down with an average £36,000 of debt and now eager to leave the institutions of education and start their adult lives, these young Britons instead face more months of worry about the future.

Already graduate job opportunities have fallen by 77 per cent, according to job search website Adzuna – from 15,000 to 3,000. That means 100 graduates applying for each role. Graduate salaries are also starting to slip.

And one in three final year students have lost their graduate job before starting, while another third have had their offer deferred or rescinded, according to Prospects, a graduate careers service.

So who can blame them if they look across at Rishi’s Kickstarters – who will be guaranteed the National Minimum Wage for 25 hours per week (which can be topped up by employers to give them a better hourly rate or more hours) on a scheme set to run until December 2021 at least - with a little envy.

A steady wage, a sense of purpose, a reason to get out of the house, make new friends, learn to navigate the world of work – these are the reasons we all want to work whether it’s on the production line, as a management trainee or in a shiny new start-up.

Sunak is not oblivious to the issues. He has already noted that young people “bear the brunt” of recessions and are at particular risk from the coronavirus crisis because they work in sectors “disproportionately hit” by lockdown, such as catering and hospitality.

We know that the Government sees the risk in youth unemployment: the Chancellor has warned it  “has a long-term impact on jobs and wages and we don’t want to see that happen to this generation.”

And the Government should also be mindful of the recent Resolution Foundation report which warned that youth unemployment could surge past one million in coming months thanks to the incoming Covid-19 recession; this will threaten both jobs and levels of pay.

In fact, the Resolution Foundation – an economics think tank – warned that an estimated 800,000 school and university leavers are preparing to enter the workforce in the next few months, yet almost no companies are hiring and many are juggling layoffs versus furloughs.

So what to make of this Janus-style approach to youth employment? How can it be right to look one way with such compassion and interest - and to glance the other way and see no problems?

It’s tempting to see the Chancellor’s approach as part of the Government commitment to levelling up, making sure those who have long felt ignored now feel promoted.

And there is a good case for directing money and opportunities to those communities in the North and around the coast of the UK which are always hardest hit when work is scarce.

Sunak can also be praised for improving funding to the National Careers Service, improving the number of traineeships and apprenticeships, and increasing the number of high value courses for 18-19 year old school and college leavers.

But at the same time, it is foolish to risk throwing away the careers of those who are newly qualified at university level. This would be an unforgivable loss of talent. Especially given that many of the jobs of the future will depend on those fresh-faced graduates with their degrees in computer game design, chemical engineering, accountancy and Mandarin Chinese finding their feet now.

I would initiate a Graduate Enterprise Allowance scheme - taking its inspiration from Margaret Thatcher’s 1984 £40-a-week basic-income approach which empowered a generation of creatives and entrepreneurs from artist Tracey Emin to Julian Dunkerton of clothes brand Superdry.  Its 2010 successor was aimed at the over-25s; why couldn’t a 2020 version target those 24 or under?

If the economy isn't firing on all its cylinders at once – with all the job sectors equally supported – we run the risk of losing our graduates abroad: a talent drain of the worst kind.

No one would argue that this isn't a difficult equation to balance.  But kickstarting one group of young workers alone could end up being a paltry fig leaf for a deeper employment problem in the future.