Up to 10,000 internships will be offered to young people who have been on welfare payments for six months or more under a deal struck between the Turnbull government and retail sector.

Participants aged between 15 and 24 will undergo training before securing 12-week placements in major retailers under the federal government’s PaTH internship program.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that overall 120,000 Australians over four years would be given the opportunity to acquire pre-work training and internship experience to set them up to land a full-time job.

“We have in Australia at the moment about 12.7 per cent of young people (aged) between 15-24 who are looking for work in the workforce or are unable to get a job. That is far too high,” he said.

“This is a critically important part of our program to deliver jobs and growth, not just a slogan, but an outcome.

“Among those 10,000 young people, there will be young men and women, young boys and girls, who haven’t been able to get into the workforce. They will get a start at a job and, you know what, they could go on to great heights.”

Minister for Employment Michaela Cash said that if at the end of an internship, the participant did not receive a job, there was a process in place to trigger an investigation as to why.

Australian Retailers Association chief Russell Zimmerman welcomed the announcement, saying he viewed it as not just securing jobs but establishing career paths within the retail sector.

“The retail industry is … the second largest employer of people. We are only eclipsed by the health, which has both private and public,” he said.

“There have been some great people through retail that have started at the bottom and I refer to people like Brooks who headed up Myer until a couple of years ago, (and) Roger Corbett, the head of the Woolworth’s organisation.

“They both started at the shop floor.”