Businesses could be paid up to £6,000 by Kent County Council to take on some of the thousands of young unemployed people in the county.

Council chiefs are proposing a scheme they believe has the potential to tackle the growing crisis caused by the escalating number of jobless youngsters.

There are now nearly 9,000 young people in Kent aged between 18 and 24 who do not have jobs, representing one in seven of those out of work.

The figure has risen to 8,990 in 2011 compared to 4,855 just three years ago, coinciding with the recession.

At the same time, the number of youngsters unemployed for a year has quadrupled in a year from 165 to 640.

Now KCC says it will offer employers £3,000 to take on a non-graduate for 18 months and as much as £6,000 for a graduate. It estimates that the scheme could help create as many as 600 apprenticeships and 60 opportunities for graduates.

The council says the scheme will be ‘unique in its ambition and size’ and could create better prospects for young people at less cost than the Future Jobs Fund.

A report setting out the idea says KCC could spend £2m from its Big Society Fund to help pay the employer subsidies, with additional support from other government programmes.

Private sector companies employing fewer than 50 people would be targeted, as would other social enterprises and public sector organisations that have not taken on apprentices or graduates in the last two years.

Cllr Mike Hill (Con), KCC cabinet member for communities, said: "We want to do something to help the very large number of young unemployed people by providing a way into work.

"One of the commonest complaints is that youngsters say they cannot get a job without experience and cannot get experience without a job. This is about trying to get them that experience.

"If young people cannot get work, it potentially stores up problems for us and others further down the line."

Full details of how the scheme will operate are expected to be published next month.