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?

Nail on the head.

A terrible insight and I totally agree with you.

It's not just the minimum wage. We also we need to remember that Starmer recently did a deal with India so UK companies don't have to pay NI if they employ young Indian workers, while the media have been portraying young Brits as lazy snowflakes for over a decade.

It's almost a surprise when any company spends time and money employing a young Brit.

Graduates are being rejected from minimum wage jobs as well. There aren’t enough jobs.

Governments have made it harder and harder on businesses. I know a bloke who has his own business. He knows he’d benefit massively from an extra pair of hands and he’d be perfect to take on a younger lad and train him up. Thing is, the costs and risk of him employing someone or them not showing up or doing shit work, the burden of admin and taxes - well it’s meant that my friend is keeping his business small and only taking on work that he’s going to do himself. and my brother is in a similar position - he started out on his own after getting made redundant in Covid and he could do with an extra pair of hands but the costs and risks aren’t worth it. Governments have stifled the shit out of these small businesses. There ought to be some kind of scheme to help one person businesses take on another pair of hands to make it less onerous and risky.

my h works for a larger company and they have decided to take zero graduates this year.

it’s nothing to do with getting a grip and taking any job.

This sadly.
seen it first hand. Things need to change, including MH support for those young people who need it.

Whilst I do agree, I have sympathy for the young people caught in this mess. Friend’s DD graduated from an RG uni and couldn’t get work. Any work. She became depressed and was comfort eating
and sleeping in, she felt shit that she had to go back and live with her parents and couldn’t move on. And yes, a diagnosis followed. But the diagnosis that I think she should have got is “fucked by a broken country”.

I agree. I'm an accountant with lots of small business clients, many "one man" tradesmen like electricians, plumbers, joiners, and garage mechanics. Not a single one takes on a "trainee/apprentice" these days. Go back a few decades, when I first started in accountancy in the 80s, and nearly all "tradesmen" clients had a trainee/apprentice. THAT's the difference today. Same with other small businesses like "one man" shops, small cafes, etc where it's usually the owner and spouse and/or children rather than unrelated staff.

Everyone says the same that they would love to have a youngster helping out, helping to grow the business, take on more work, etc., but it's the cost and bureaucracy that they can't absorb, and worries/risk/stresses of all the employment protection legislation, i.e. risk of being sued for unfair dismissal or discrimination etc.

The increase in rate of employers NIC and reduction in NIC threshold is just another nail in the coffin, as is the increase in minimum wage for youngsters. I've seen a constant fall in the number of small business clients taking on young staff over the last 20 years. Today, literally none at all have young/trainee staff and when talking to them, none have any plans to do so.

Lots of them have, over the past couple of decades, been in contact with the local college of FE to discuss apprenticeships, but all have said they got no help at all from the college who just wanted lots of "paperwork" before they'd even have a chat, such as employment policies, risk assessments, copies of insurance policies etc - i.e. putting barriers in place before they'd even talk about it.

I've got a steady stream of elderly tradesmen clients who are retiring, a handful each year, and they despair at having to give up and give away their customer base - usually long standing regular/repeat customers. Having an apprentice to take over would be a brilliant start for the next generation giving them a ready made business, but it all just gets thrown away.

One guy who isn't a client is our alarm maintenance guy/electrician who looks after our home and my office. He's in his 70s, a local guy I've known for decades as we live in the same village. He's the exception. Around five years ago, he took on an apprentice. A lovely lad who was his neighbour. When he first came, he was really shy, quiet and nervous and clearly hadn't a clue. They come a couple of times per year. Each visit, he's been more confident and for the last couple of years has done all the actual work himself with the old guy just watching. Last time they came, he announced he's retiring and the lad was taking over. That's how it should be and how it always used to be. But so sad it's now the exception rather than the norm.

This topic was discussed on radio 5 yesterday. A guest on the show said there were 10,000 grad jobs available....and 900, 000 people graduating!

Of course not everyone is entitled to a graduate job but its a bit shitty to constantly hear young people are entitled/snowflakes/need to get a grip....when multiple posters are sharing how difficult it is for their YP to get a job. My DD wants to work and earn money, she's got a job but its a zero hours one....which means zero hours more often than not! (Yes, she is looking and applying elsewhere)

And its not helpful to relate what any of us did in the 1990s because the whole world including jobs has changed massively since then. Fwiw I got my first saturday job in 1995 because my friends mum worked in a department store and asked if I wanted a job there. Said department store has gone bust and Saturday jobs aren't generally a thing any more. Point is I wasnt applying for 100s of jobs, only to get a job that doesnt even guarantee a 4 hour shift per week!

It offers work across many sectors.

There are loads of large national agencies eg Reed, Pertemps, Hays, Manpower etc. As well as smaller local ones offering a variety of roles in a wide range of industries - everything from customer service and admin, to care work, manufacturing, warehouse work and professional industries.

What they are looking for mainly is commitment, reliability, work ethic and a reference.

My partner works in manufacturing and they take people on from agencies - a lot of their workers are agency and many have just been willing to work and turn up and have been trained on the job. A lot of them are men with no qualifications and some have little to no work history.

My brother joined an agency after university which led to a permanent graduate role.

If they're at university, they will have already demonstrated the soft, interpersonal and admin skills for a low level job. Eg group assignments shows teamwork, if you've taken notes during these meetings, you have experience of minute taking. If they're school leavers who haven't worked, any extra curricular activities etc will have given them soft skills. Agencies will find a way of spinning your skills in a positive way.

The best thing they can do is to come up with a CV and make contact with a few agencies. The consultant my daughter spoke to was really helpful.

Basically, agencies will take on anyone who applies and come across well! After that, it's down to the individual how successful they are. And agencies will pretty much tell you that.

If they opt for University they should at least have a clear career path in mind. How many just choose a subject they like with no idea what next?

That’s insane.

Even those who've chosen the course/uni WITH a clear career path struggle these days due to the number of graduates being far higher than the number of vacancies.

My DS had a flat mate who took a Financial Maths degree with a view to becoming an accountant or actuary. Clear career path, straight A*s at A Level. Got a First degree in Financial Maths. By all accounts, given the supposed shortage of STEM graduates, he should have had no particular problems getting a job. He had relevant work experience, had had volunteering experience, he'd been in a Uni sports team, he could "tick all the boxes" on the application forms. DS said it took him around 100 applications over 3 years to get a graduate scheme job.

There've been reports recently of medical school graduates unable to get junior doctor's jobs because the NHS wasn't taking on as many as there were graduates coming through medical school. That's a pretty clear "career path" that still doesn't guarantee a job.

People need to realise that today's job market is nothing like it was in the 80s and 90s. Experiences of today's parents/grandparents (who started work in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s) is absolutely nothing like today's job market.

It is tragic that it is happening. This makes it even more important to make wise educational decisions when young.

Youth unemployment was very high in the 80’s. It took me ages to get my fist job.

’I am a one in ten’ UB 40

The stats are just so depressing. Agree with so many PP who have made the point that life is so very different now to how it was even a decade or so ago.

The whole zero hours contract thing is a nightmare as well. My DS, a 21yo graduate, is currently working in a zero hours contract hospitality job. He generally gets a couple of shifts a week (c 12-15 hours) which not ideal but better than nothing and certainly better than a lot of zero hours experiences I've heard/read about. Like @Fizbosshoes DD he is looking for alternative employment but even the applications for the most basic jobs are soul destroying. Most companies don't even bother to reply.

I agree. This notion that the state should support you the minute you turn 18 is wrong especially as you haven't contributed anything yet. Interestingly in many places the benefits are specific - food stamps for example. Incentivising those who don’t want to work has to happen too.

This is exactly what I meant but failed to articulate properly! It’s so sad.

Even when my dd tried to get work experience, the process was shockingly bureaucratic from the school. So we arranged it in the holidays and I signed to say dd was fine to do it.

It’s so hard to get basics done and as a result, young people are less employable.

The vast majority of agencies sign you up and then you never hear from them again. That’s how it’s always been, not a new thing. I find it very frustrating when people say “Have you tried agencies?” when there isn’t any agency work! I’ve only ever found one agency who seemed to like me, who used to get me loads of work but now it’s dwindled to almost nothing. I’ve asked them if there’s a problem and they’ve said no, there just isn’t much work any more.

I’ve never understood people on here who talk about “picking up a bit of temp work” in this really casual way as if it’s that easy. We’re always told stuff like keep in touch with your agency, be dressed early every morning, say yes to anything etc, well I did that every time and it’s never worked for me apart from this one agency, and that only lasted for a while. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not trendy enough or what, but I have never understood people who say “I signed up with Office Angels and was working the next day!” I suspect it’s because it’s only the unusual lucky few who say these things, and 99% of us are sitting there thinking what?

And that was quite a long time ago, wasn’t it. You’re giving out of date and out of touch advice.

This is incorrect.

People who are temporarily seconded to the UK from an Indian company won’t pay NICs (or employer NICs) for up to three years. Same (vice versa) for UK workers sent to work in India.

It’s about avoiding double tax and is a common arrangement already with the EU and the US.

My dh got.a permanent job through an agency BUT that was 17 years ago
I think some people are a little out of touch with the reality these days
Its like people who bang on about leaving school with no qualification , and getting a job and working there way up ,yes that might have been possible in the past but unlikely now.

Well, your experience is not mine and not my daughter's. Nor my brother's, nor my partner's experience of working with a company that uses agencies.

Maybe some agencies are better than others. Maybe some people are more pro active than others.

And, do you know what, there is always the chance that someone will join and then never hear from the agency again, of course there is. I did supply teaching for a while and I joined agencies who promised the world and delivered nothing. But it didn't matter, because I was also registered with three others and worked with them instead.

But you can try. You can sign up with more than one. You can respond to the texts they send out and the emails. You can look on the websites to see if there is anything you're interested in and express an interest. You can call them and chase it up - show a bit of willingness and gumption. Or you can sit at home finding a problem for.every solution, deciding to not even bother and just moan about it 🤷🏻‍♀️

And it's simply not true to say there is no agency work. I looked on the website for the agency my daughter joined and there are literally hundreds of jobs advertised on there.

Exactly!

Some posters clearly have no idea.

Funny how a raft of "lazy, workshy" young people always happens to coincide with high unemployment, eh?

How can people not see that if we had the job opportunities available in the past, young people would be taking the jobs as they did in the past.

I was young (under 25) when the 2008 financial crisis and recession hit. We were all called lazy and workshy back then, too. What actually happened was a sudden stark change - previously you could go out with a stack of CVs and get a job easily. Suddenly no one was hiring, in fact were laying off staff (I lost my retail job as a direct result). It was really odd, and horrible, the way suddenly there was no work and you could try everything and get nowhere. Not just young people either, adults who'd always worked suddenly branded workshy scroungers because there just weren't enough jobs.

How can people not see this? Did they not know, or don't remember, people losing their jobs and desperate after 2008?

I’ve done all that a million times over at various points during my life, and it has never worked for me. I have always looked on their websites, replied to messages etc, done all the things you’re supposed to do. I’ve showed huge amounts of “willingness and gumption” 🙄, thank you very much, and it’s never worked for me apart from one agency who now don’t get me much work any more. This has been my experience over twenty years or more.

Sorry to disappoint you, but your story is the temp agency equivalent of “I quit my day job and now I make 10k a month on Twitch”. It didn’t happen for most people. You’re a minority. Agencies only give work to a small fraction of the people they sign up, because they want to have a huge pool of people to call in case of some emergency which rarely happens.

Out of those hundreds of jobs you’ve seen advertised, a huge amount of them will be ghost job adverts. Clients often say things like oh we’re might need someone next month but we haven’t decided yet, so the agency sign up a load of people just in case, only for the job to never materialise because the client has decided they don’t need anyone after all. An agency actually told me years ago that this is what they actually do.

My son (22) has worked since he was 16, even through Covid, albeit minimum wage. My DD is at uni and had a paid internship last summer and one lined up for this summer, plus is starting a paid internship this April at a tad over minimum. She knew getting a regular student job (bar work etc) would be super competitive with so many students looking too so scoured the internal uni portal for any opportunity, and has found this latest position within her own department so directly related to her degree, so a double win. Term time jobs are more problematic, but all her friends have summer jobs. When I left uni in the 1980s I worked at a department store as a sales assistant- the same type of job I had at 17, until I landed a job related to my degree. It would never have occurred to me to sign on.

Teachers will always be in demand
I think its different to a general agency that supplies workers to various different companies.