Nearly 1m young people out of work

[Starfeesh]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62gzl2yl24o

AIBU to be concerned that a life on benefits seems to be a viable option, and glad Labour are bringing in compulsory work placements?

Kept inside with no contact

There has never been a time when it has been so possible to be in contact with others without leaving your own living room!

And of course there was terrible trauma after both world wars, however people still had to carry on as best they could. I'm pretty sure going to school and finding some of your friends had been killed by a bomb was worse than being confined to your house (and no-one was actually confined, they could go out for exercise) for a few months. Ditto your father, brother, uncle being killed in battle, or other family members being killed in raids and/or losing your home.

I am not here to benefits bash but I generally do not understand how young adults have been allowed to languish on benefits.

One half have been told go to university and leave with a large debt (at least 50k, which they pay interest on even before they have left uni), the other half can claim money despite never paying into the system and do not have to pay it back. Then we tell those have found a job that as soon as they start working they have to pay tax and pay back the loan and save up for a house deposit/pay rent and save into a pension, meanwhile the other half are now out of the habit of working and have increased mental/physical health issues that mean they qualify for higher payments and a fully paid for car and social housing (yes, they may have to wait but at least they make it onto the list).

The system needs to be looked at as a whole; education, jobs, benefits, housing and cost of living. They are all connected, you can not tinker with one without affecting the other.

Does this girl have an EHCp?

Sorry, i don't know if she does. Is it just applicable for those with SEN? Or more for anyone with a long term health problem?

A long term health problem is SEND.

Agree with a lot of what you say but I don’t think anyone is getting a fully paid for car are they?

(*Edited to say I didn't intend to quote this post)

This thread is so depressing.

Sure, there are workshy young people these days. There were workshy kids in the 80s when I was that age and there were workshy kids at every point in between. However, there are no more workshy kids than there have ever been.

Times have changed and it simply is harder to find jobs these days. For many reasons, almost none of which are the fault of young people. For example:

• The retirement age has risen and there is no longer a statutory retirement age so people can carry on working for longer - fewer openings for new staff
• Automation (and now AI) means fewer staff are needed for the same amount of work (in the early 1990s, 30+ checkout staff would work on a Saturday in Sainsbury's in my town. These days it's more like 7).
• Increasing numbers of women return to work after maternity leave rather than being SAHM.
• And yes, too many new expenses on employers too soon (Employer's NI, NMW rises, increased employment rights). None of them are unreasonable but together over a short period of time, they have spooked employers who have put the brakes on recruitment.

None of this is the fault of young people though.

Ok. Sorry. I'm not familiar with it.

I don't know the full story with regards to their situation but I should imagine there's some such support there. At least, I hope there is.

Motability accounts for 1 in 5 new cars purchased in the UK - eligible people sacrifice the mobility portion of their disability benefits in return for the car, insurance and breakdown cover.

bottom line UBI is the future

Really? I don't know a soul who did this. It's extraordinary to me. Why weren't you already employed?

I worked for a few years prior to leaving school......and then all the way through uni. This is how many people fund/funded themselves.

My parents would have been horrified to have raised me to not understand you don't work you don't eat.

Zero-hour contracts should be banned.
It's legalised exploitation.

And then there’s the application process itself, which has become absolutely ridiculous. So many ghost job adverts (needs to be made illegal tbh) which are just there for data gathering and who knows how many of them are breaking GDPR laws. Spending hours carefully filling in application forms, only to be rejected within minutes because they’re not even reviewed by a human, or the job is no longer available but they haven’t taken the advert down.

Then if you do get an interview, it’s four or five rounds of interviews, or group assessment days lasting all day. Or, as I’ve read a few stories of recently, people being interviewed by AI bots because nobody from the company even has enough respect to bother interviewing people in person. Then, once you’ve jumped through all these hoops, the company ghosts you and you never hear from them again, because they don’t even have respect to send you a basic email saying thanks but no thanks.

Is it any wonder there’s so much apathy and anger when employers waste so many people’s time, and spend weeks putting people through insane recruitment processes, only to not even hire anyone? Some of these people saying “Nobody wants to work anymore” need to take a good look at themselves, show some respect to job seekers and stop wasting peoples time. And if they’re not prepared to do that, then the government needs to step in and regulate it all.

We need to educate our young people. Ensure their numeracy writing, ability to reason etc is top notch. Unless they have SEN, every child should at least be able to achieve a 5 or 6 in Maths and English.
Entry level jobs are going so we need our young people to have exceptional higher order thinking skills in this job market.

And young people, if they choose to go to university, need to develop unique selling points that will make them invaluable to employers.

E.g. Being exceptional at coding with evidence to back it up. Or evidence of engagement in industries they want to go into.

I heard Lucy Kellaway on the radio this morning (was a journalist, then went into teaching). She said her students have no idea what most people’s jobs are like - all they see are footballers on TV and influencers online, so that’s what they all want to be. It’s no surprise that they think bricklaying and nursing and catering seem beneath them when they see people a few years older than them on Tiktok posing round with Louis Vuitton bags and seeming to do no work.

I can remember graduating in 2008 just as the economy hit the wall in a "sensible" degree I had worked hard at and done well in. And looking for jobs while enduring teeth grinding conversations at the dinner table about how young people have it so easy/just want to laze around. Etc etc.
So it's not a new phenomenon but it's still very unhelpful. I think each older generation likes to imagine the generations coming after them are inferior somehow. Especially because things have changed so much even since the 2010s let alone the 90s/70s in how the job market works. So advice about just handing round your CV ísnt very helpful.
I do think too much negativity can be counterproductive (trade apprenticeships are good and going to uni isn't necessarily a waste of time). There are jobs out there still. But not acknowledging it's tough isn't fair.

How did you get her back on track? I’m so worried about my own dd and school right now, she’s ND and disengaging more and more

Just let her leave A levels. It was the hardest thing ever. Sh stayed on role whilst we fought for an EHCP.

She got it and was enrolled in a ND 6th form but refused to go!

We left her to get better and after 18 months out of education she did an Access course and got distinctions on everything.

It was impossibly hard. But she was in burnout and had to recover. Once she ‘recovered’ she wanted to do stuff. She’s still in and out of burnout all the time, but it’s much less severe.

Have you tried getting a room in a shared house? They're full of the asylum seekers your lot didn't want in hotels.

Unless they have SEN, every child should at least be able to achieve a 5 or 6 in Maths and English.

Only if they change how GCSEs are marked.

Yanbu though I can’t see this compulsory work placements thing happening or making a big impact

Labour need to pull their finger out on youth unemployment which is a HUGE issue which affects millions of their core voter demography, and even more if you include their parents
my kids are not working age yet but I worry about this a lot.

Really?

This. And employers should receive benefits for taking on young starters.

Its ironic in the week the white paper for special education needs is published that this report also comes out.
Do the people in government not see any correlation between failing SEND provision and rise of young people not in education and training?!?!
The SEND white paper weakens the law and the statutoty rights of SEND pupils.
Of course LAs ignored the law and their statutory responsibilties because its "too expensive" they just kick the problem down the road to someone elses budget.
And successive government have been complicit in this, failing our young people repeatedly.

The issue is complex

high Nat insurance
high wage for age
no one wants to take on new people due to uncertainty in the economy
MH unsupported particularly after Covid

can’t get driving tests. I’m convinced this is holding the economy back too

AI replacing positions.
this is happening in real time now. I know a few people that have been affected.

business rates are too high premise’s are squeezed to hard

retail is reducing year on year as online shopping takes over

practices in retail are changing. Self service etc

even my
cinema only has a few staff members now.

increases paperwork and beaurocracy for work experience and part time work

it’s going to get worse with labour as they can’t see it.

if I was minister I’d offer a 10k tax break for every young person under 25 employed for 5 years We need to encourage business owners.