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?

How is that level of earnings going to be funded? It's only possible if cost to the customer increase.

Can’t make them homeless? They would be making themselves homeless. Why do you think they should benefit from others hard work? Baffling.

Technology I believe has a part, I worked in a large Morrisons store for over 10 years before going to nursing. When I first worked there we had around 150 employees, by the time I left a couple years back, we had around 70 employees, cuts due to self checkouts etc.

However, my son aged 16, still in school, made his own little handyman type business last year, odd jobs, painting, gardening etc. When he turned 16 he then got a job in McDonald’s and was offered 2 others around the same time, was offered the first 3 jobs he ever applied for, so may be just luck?

wasn't going back into the 70s - I get the issue I've done both a Level 3 and a Degree through apprenticeships in my current role (but also own the company) - decided I needed some qualifications other than my Irish Intercert as was crap at school.

Lots of YP looking for jobs at 18/19 + is far too late should all have a part-time job from earlier - so important for many things - not just future employability - we currently empoly two14, 15 and 16 YO in my OH business as only a few hours on the weekend and holidays - but the value to them seeing their maths, people and work ethic - all go beyond renumaration (and we pay more than the minimum at 16)

Exactly! As a teenager, most of us found it easy to get shop/waiting on jobs. Teenagers in my family/neighbourhood apply over and over. One decided to take his CV round town after using Indeed and just being messed around, and businesses chucked it in the bin.
It needs to be made cheaper for businesses to employ people, full stop. And there should be work made available to people on benefits (I claimed JSA myself between jobs in the past, and I would have been very happy to do "volunteer" stuff, eg supporting in schools/hospitals/doing painting in towns etc-much better to be doing that if you're able to, than feel bad moping round the house because you can't find a job).
While I completely disagreed with Rishi Sunak's National Service idea, carefully made programmes that offer skills training, take into account needs, and genuinely help other people (maybe involving travel/living independently to develop adult competences) would be a great idea.

What subject is it?

The thing about "entry level" jobs is there used to be an expectation that there would be a career ladder/training. With blue collar jobs too. You might be in one company your whole life. Then it became much more normal to go from job to job and a job for Life wasn't a thing anymore. Plus companies didn't want to invest in training on the job as much - instead young people were expected to do it themselves. In America this was paid for by the young person (and super expensive) in other places it was subsidised by the government.

Now I don't think young people are looking at low paid jobs with unsociable hours and thinking "in a few years time if I do well I'll earn more, and in a few years after that I could be earning a decent wage". They are maybe thinking it won't last long, or will retain the same pay. That might not be the case with your companys jobs - but young peoplé won't know that because work culture is completely different.

Plus, anything in the manufacturing sector can have an air of pessimism to it (rightly or wrongly). Mass layoffs in the 80s and the unhelpful doom and gloom from some papers give the impression it isn't a job with future career advancement. Which is a shame.

Have you tried really emphasizing the possibility of career progression/in work training/a strep raise in wages. I think that can mean móre to young people than starting pay. The pay opportunities might seem obvious to you but not them.

This, exactly. I'm fed up of seeing this narrative pushed that young people are lazy. The job market is just terrible, there was a post on MN today about how people with degrees are getting jobs in supermarkets, so what hope do young people have? It's just another way that the wealthy and powerful have ruined our country and they're spinning it as the fault of individuals instead of taking any accountability

Too many experienced people are prepared to work in NMW jobs for various reasons, leaving no jobs for the youngsters and school leavers.

The COL has led to many people taking on a second job, or re-entering the workforce after being a SAHP as that lifestyle becomes unaffordable, and there aren’t any jobs left for those just getting started (or not as the case may be).

I don’t know what the solution is, other than for young people to emigrate and job-hunt elsewhere.

There used to be a very long row of humans on tills at my local big supermarkets, now there are maybe 3 open and 18 self service checkouts are being used. That’s one huge reason people can’t get jobs.

My dad used to work helping young people who weren't in education, work, or training. It was his job to get them into one of these, support them, motivate them etc. He doesn't do that job anymore, no one does, because the funding was cut. The government for years cut youth services that offered any kind of support, and now people are turning round and blaming young people for being 'lazy' and saying we should cut welfare. Stupid. We need to invest in young people not just leave them

I can't believe the amount of hostility on here. Young people have been shafted and are really struggling. Most of them do NOT want to live a life on PIP!

Advice from anyone who talks about going round town to drop in a CV should automatically be disregarded. The world is unrecognisable from the days when that approach would land you a job. Sorry but you sound totally out of touch.

Please don't give up! That sounds so perfect for many!

10,000 young doctors who finished their Foundation 2 last August had no jobs. The same has happened to newly qualified nurses and midwives.

We supposedly have a shortage of health care workers, so give equal access to our jobs to health care workers from overseas. Trouble is that the jobs have to go to the applicant with the most experience and qualifications. Experience newly qualified young people don't have. So we bring in workers from all over the world and leave our young people stacking shelves in supermarkets. Or being exploited as locums. (The number of unemployed and underemployed young doctors is such that locum rates are shockingly low. £70ph for long nights over Christmas working in a short staffed intensive care - just zero hours with no leave, pension or training on top. Standard rate is £39ph and with absolutely no security and you take what you get regardless of commute, speciality or responsibility. NHS Bank had so many staff on its books that last summer it was no9t bothering to process new applications.)

Our local Facebook is full of kids looking for ANY sort of work. Care work, labouring etc. Yet our MP gets all pious about the debt we owe to workers from overseas and, effectively, why we should not tighten up our immigration policies to give our own kids a chance.

However, my son aged 16, still in school, made his own little handyman type business last year, odd jobs, painting, gardening etc. When he turned 16 he then got a job in McDonald’s and was offered 2 others around the same time, was offered the first 3 jobs he ever applied for, so may be just luck?

I'd imagine it says lot about the sort of person he is and the qualities he possesses. I'd say those were attractive to employers and what made him stand out.

Working in HR for a large company there is a virtually no hiring bar technical roles that cannot be covered. The aim is to keep reducing the workforce and the current workforce absorbing the work of leavers and retirees. As this is still not enough redundancy are next. This isn't even AI related. There has been no new hires for the under 25 for the last year and the graduates scheme disbanded.

And arguably, you probably wouldn’t have got a lot of the alternative musicians, comedians, comedy writers that were so successful in the 1970s/1980s, if some of those weren’t able to have the time to sit on the dole writing amazing stuff!

Currently though JSA requires you prove yoú spend 35 hours a week "job hunting". Which leaves less time for other activities. I think if you said "I only spent 20 hours a job hunting this week because the place I volunteer at had an emergency and I needed to put more time in there" you would be sanctioned. The requirements weren't as onerous before.
I do think it would be better if people could replace some of the 35 hours job hunting with say voluntéering. But there needs to be joined up thinking on it
The other risk with volunteering is it ends up replacing jobs that were previously paid this shrinking the job market further. It would be awful for young people to be volunteering at a job that generations before would have paid a good salary for and be called a drain for claiming JSA. Volunteering can be good. But there needs to be clear boundaries around it to demarcate it from jobs. Otherwise you get "experience" in a field where all the work is unpaid labour.

Absolutely. I was in Manchester. Loads of the bands formed on the dole went onto be superstars.

I totally agree with this.

We've been looking for mid-level staff that are likely to be with us for years. We like recruiting trainees and bringing them up all the way through the ranks, but also to have a backbone of good quality, reliable staff.

The younger staff we have have a huge sense of entitlement. One had really poor performance, was repeatedly late but wanted a payrise! When we pointed these things out he said "well, if you paid me more I'd have more incentive to turn up on time"! Thankfully, he's hit 30 and has got married and has suddenly matured, so is now one of our best employees - it was a very frustrating period of time though! He was lucky to make it through as he got to a final warning stage before he bucked his ideas up.

I've worked for almost 30 years now, always for small businesses, and the only sickness absences I've seen from colleagues have been the usual viral issues and an occasional more major health concern, like having operations, etc.

In the last 12 months, out of my team of 5, 2 have gone off on long term sick with mental health issues. They're both in their mid-20s, single and still living at home.

We don't give them a stressful work life. Their work is set weeks in advance with realistic and reasonable deadlines. We don't ask people to work any extra hours. They come in at 9am and leave at 5.30pm on the dot.

I have no idea why there is no resilience any more!

And it would no doubt be made hard to get rid of them if they are useless.

Poor young people. The awful policies from Labour are not helping.

Which policies do you have in mind?

Dsd is 16, left school and doesn’t want to do anything. She does have a little cleaning job, 16 hours a week. But doing less hours than she’s meant to be and taking friends with her so she will finish faster.
Refusing to go to college/apprenticeship, we’ve really tried to convince her. Instead she has now been awarded pip for adhd, high mobility aswell. No idea how she managed that as she is perfectly able bodied and out on her own all the time ! She told them she can’t cook her own food etc !
Now she is going to get a car through pip. If she put as much effort into studying as she has to get this pip she’d go far !!

In the case of nurses, they used to get paid while training, now most of them have to get student loans to qualify. The days when you could become an SRN with 5 O-levels and 3 years paid training are long gone.

That's quite a big disincentive.

I don't know what the issue is with trade apprenticeships though. Someone I know has recently completed 3 years training and is working as a carpenter for a company that makes bespoke windows for listed buildings. He earns bloody good money, and loves the work.