Nearly 1m young people out of work

Every young person I know out of work has applied for a ridiculous amount of jobs with no luck. A young person I know on a gap year can't even get a casual bar job or waiter/waitress job. The job market is absolutely dire.

Over generous benefits?! A single under 25 gets £316.98 Universal Credit per month and an over 25 gets £400.14. That is assuming that you’re not chronically sick or disabled or a carer.

When schools were manageable size, a school careers manager could easily support 60 school leavers and give genuine practical support.

When was that? From what I hear careers advice is awful now, it was awful in the 1990s when I was at secondary school, in the 1980s when my cousin was at secondary school and in the 1960s when my parents were. Perhaps there were a few years in the 1970s when it was half decent?

Young people have a reputation for moaning and demanding employers make changes in order to fit their "needs". Not all of them are like this of course but enough of them are to make employers wary about hiring them when they can hire an older person who goes to work with the intention of working.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but the government and their predecessors are reaping what they’ve sowed.

Teenagers are becoming disengaged and taught they have no place. Crises in schools and any other organisation the government have a hand in. Taught that the world is a terrible place with no hope. Taught that if they’re different they’re hated which isolates them far more than helps them. Identity politics isolates them even more.

Hopefully some will have the motivation to buck up and make some changes. Apparently Gen Alpha are a feral bunch who may just do that.

As a young single person, with a room in a shared house? Yes absolutely, I did it for years.

Do you think they can live off a minimum wage job?

Well the young people I know are desperately scratting about for any crumb thrown to them work-wise and not claiming any benefits.
Getting a full time job with a contract seems nigh on impossible.
I see disillusioned young people who have almost given up the hope of leaving home, or learning to drive and getting a car so they can widen their search.
They've been let down. Yet their drive and determination is humbling

Bully for you. Why did you do what your parents told you to?

I didn’t go home in the holidays and my dm wouldn’t have cared.

Yes.

Er, I have every sympathy with young people but some of us did not sign on automatically. My parents wouldn’t allow it while I was living with them, I had to walk around our local area with my cv until I got a temporary job.

I don’t think young people are creative enough in job hunting.

There is some truth in this.

Honestly, who could have predicted this when they brought in minimum wage? 🙄

You want them to do minimum wage jobs and prevent them from claiming benefits?

My daughter is in her second year too.

Has she tried recruitment agencies?

My daughter has two lecture free days a week, signed up with an agency and has worked every day she's been available.

She's currently living 180 miles away but the agency have told her they'll transfer her file to her home town when she comes back for the summer and will get her something for her first week back.

The parents are told not to push the kids as they may be neurodiverse/anxious and self harm if they try.

🤷‍♀️

The parents shouldn't allow that, I wouldn't and my parents certainly didn't. When I decided not to go to university I was told under no uncertain terms that I wouldn't be allowed to sit about with my finger up my arse all day.

Yeah, that was then though - and this is now.

l ledt school in the very early 80’s. We signed on automatically.

I was at uni too. We signed on then. Loads of people were on the ‘dole’ too. Some for years.

They all turned into functioning working adults.

Before they blame "young people" en masse, Labour should bring back, and invest in the school careers service.

Genuinely work with each young person to find out what they like and enjoy, what environments they feel comfortable in. What their aptitudes are.

Nothing else is going to help. Trying to shove square pegs in round holes doesn't work.

When schools were manageable size, a school careers manager could easily support 60 school leavers and give genuine practical support.

I don’t think young people are creative enough in job hunting.

They aim for all the main brands (McDonalds, major retailers) which everyone else will be applying for. They need to try pubs, small local ads, cleaning, they need to be advertising their services on Facebook, care homes, that sort of thing.

Who needs that bullshit when trying to run a business though? Can you imagine the admin involved just to be rewarded with 1 days worth of their UC? I suspect take up will be low!

I see people on benefits every day.

Allowing people to claim from leaving school is a disaster.

They start out employable young people, albeit with a few minor issues sometimes. But a few hundred quid to lie in bed all day at mum and dad’s and spent on takeaways and vapes just embeds whatever anxieties they have, while stripping away any work ethic and ability to get up early etc

After a few years you’re left with somebody who is basically unemployable, they haven’t got up early for years, have zero work ethic. The diagnoses then flood in and they start claiming PIP. Very few go on to work after 5+ years of benefits, they do have kids of course though (more benefits).

If they’d never been given the benefits to start with, things would be very different. I’m a big believer in necessity as motivation.

I think the idea with the compulsory work placements is that the money that would’ve been paid directly to the young person through UC will instead be offered to businesses if they agree to take on a young person for example 1 day a week, and if the young person attends then they will be paid by the business.

Tiny job market with companies that want 5 years experience for min. wage.