Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw has announced that more than 200 theatre and performing arts apprenticeships have been made available in a bid to help more young unemployed people into work.

Nearly 170 jobs will be provided across 14 London boroughs as part of a project run by New Deal of the Mind, including design assistants, marketing assistants and fundraisers at organisations including the British Library. Meanwhile, New Deal of the Mind is also behind 56 new positions at a disability-led theatre group in Ongar, Essex, which will enable young people to take roles including community craft workers and arts programme workers.

Bradshaw said: "This means that there will shortly be more than 200 previously unemployed young people working in an exciting, creative environment that might otherwise have proved impossible to break into. This £1.45m announcement is a tremendous investment in our creative industries and in the talent of the future." The funding has been made available through the Future Jobs Fund, launched by the Department of Work and Pensions to create 120,000 new jobs for young people who have been unemployed for six months.

Forming part of the government's Young Persons Guarantee, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has committed to provide 10,000 jobs as part of the fund, including 5,000 in sport and 5,000 in culture.