Young people in the UK have it tough

[JiIttiIg]

All the news stories are about young people not getting jobs and having to stay with their parents. It used to be they had to stay at home to save for a house, now it's no house and no jobs. Can't see things getting any better in the near future. Is the UK now a country that is failing it's young people. Is it going to be like countries from Eastern or Southern Europe where young people had to outmigrate in order to get a decent life? Can't see any politicians having the right answers.

The decline didn’t suddenly happen in the last 23 months. The “wealthy people” have been here for the last 15 odd years so why weren’t we thriving then??

I’m no fan of this govt but to place the entire blame on them isn’t realistic. The position the country finds itself in today is a result of steady decline and successive governments failing to act in the long term interests of the country over whatever actions benefits their party in the short term.

I have tbh though and say i definitely see point of view from businesses about only recruiting more experience employees for remote roles.

I personally found it tricky enough starting a new internal role completely remote after mat leave and I am used to wfh and had been working for 20 years.

Not sure why you’re commenting a migration figure in response to a comment about benefits. 800k might have come in but a lot of those will be students and professionals who add to the economy. People arriving are typically restricted from claiming benefits.

Net migration was 171,000 in 2025, lower than the levels seen during the 2010s and a sharp decline from the unusually high levels in 2022 and 2023. In 2025, 67% of non-EU immigration was for work and study purposes.

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

Australia isn't the panacea its made out to be! Ive got a lot of family there and its got really expensive . Sil & her husband have really good jobs, better paid than the equivalent here, but had to look 2 hrs from the city to buy.

Lots of stuff like food is quite expensive. Jobs are still facing the same issues here - a lot of vacancies in sectors people either don't want to work in or lack the skills for.

The Tories aren't in power. This whataboutery is two years old and still isn't washing.

@CheeseyOnionPieIt’s not about wealth. Some have inherited wealth and employ virtually no one!

It’s business we need and many fail. Highly paid city types aren’t employing anyone, they are employed. The wealth creators are largely the business owners and in this country, and many of them are small and have the odds stacked against them. High business rates, employee taxes and conditions of employment mean younger people are not attractive as employees. The jobs are disappearing too. It’s a huge issue and there are no easy answers but not wanting rich people here is clearly the politics of envy. We need to attract global employers and make them welcome by having great workers and great business conditions. Brexit has curtailed the latter and we struggle with the former. Being anti wealth and anti business harms the young though.

They may not be in power now but the effects of their policies will resonate for at least a decade. It’s much easier to destroy than to rebuild.

Not all students add to the economy long term. Some come to take poor quality masters degrees. The better students on competitive courses often leave after studying. Lots will be things like relatively modestly paid PhD students and some will bring dependents who will need places in schools etc, use healthcare services.

There wasn't much growth before Austerity... remember the global financial crisis in 2008?

Since then, we have elected a series of shallow, self-serving, talentless politicians whose only skill is milking the public and generating clicks and likes.

But the great British public also has to look in the mirror. We teach foreign language skills too little, too late and not generally well, but our native tongue is the world's second language. It's not going to make a person employable in Poland or SE Asia.

We have to encourage our young people to fly the nest, often far away, at 18 or 20 for work or to study, rather than a gap year's drinking holiday in Asia.

I'm quite old but most of my friends and family seem to have had an appetite for risk and went overseas for the experience and to earn more.

Of course its the kids fault. At 20-22 they are old enough to get involved in something and get off their phones.
And they aren't kids either. They are young adults.

Yes an aging population is expensive but it becomes a choice, keep them in work at the expensive of young people.
Or encourage them to retire and free up jobs for the next generation.

So many entry level jobs have already disappeared, think how many young girls got a first job as 'office junior' running around with bits of paper, with her next step being the typing pool, that now all go by email.

Older people hanging on isn't helping encourage businesses to train young people.

What's cheaper, old people on pension or young family on topup benefits?

Why do older people "hang on", do you imagine?

Can you outline a scenario where, if every young person ditched their phones today, how they'll all be gainfully employed? The "something" seems painfully vague.

....do we really think kids today have it worse than their parents or grandparents? Nonsense.

By what matrix do you arrive at the "nonsense"? Do you think someone who works on an automobile assembly line today can hope to buy a home? Or do you think they have it better because they have smartphones and computer games, and didn't walk to school uphill in both directions?

It can be traced back to the 80's and the forced decline of our manufacturing industries, closure of state owned raw material producers as governments moved towards a service based economy.

At the time typewriters still outnumbered computers and huge numbers of office based jobs were created, the World Wide Web was just an idea and the thought of AI was simply a dream.

The world is now changing very fast, companies providing services are looking to use AI to streamline operations, and are no longer tethered to physical offices, countries or continents. Their gains are harder to tax and they are free to register where they get the best deal.

Manufacturing of high ticket, precision, non mass producible goods would be a great place to rebuild the economy, but not enough is left to re-light the fire, not enough skilled workforce to train the next generation.

Basically, sadly, we are buggered I'm afraid.

The current governments biggest fault was not doing their due diligence and over promising on something no one could deliver.

Yes they certainly do.

My parents both left university in the mid-60s straight into well-paying jobs that used their skills - and if they had not gone to university, they could have walked into the nearest factory or office and picked up a job.

I graduated in 91 with no debt, and walked straight into a fully-funded PhD, and from there into a job that paid £30k (in the late 90s) and was on £50k+ by the early 2000s.

My DC's world and employment prospects are far more precarious. They are still at school, and doing well, but opportunities are fewer and the competition is MUCH stiffer - literally hundreds of applications for even entry-level posts. Going to university, even to study a vocational degree, no longer guarantees a good job at the end - just a large debt unless you are lucky enough to have parents who will fund you (we certainly will). The opportunities to work abroad are far less accessible since the UK left the EU.

You would have to be blind to not see this.

Don’t really think it’s much easier in many countries right now. Thanks to AI, lots of junior roles have disappeared and eventually middle management ones will too. You’re only safe if you work somewhere AI can’t currently replicate. Some creative jobs are currently safe for the time being but I worry about the future, ditto teaching. Certain technical jobs are safe- plumbing, electricians, brickies, engineers etc.

It’s the basic unskilled roles that are vanishing like admin for example. Even supermarkets have slowly been eradicating their workforce through self service checkouts, robots in the distribution centres etc. As I say, it definitely isn’t exclusive to the UK so moving wouldn’t help much.

Theres a lot of young people who are anything but clever, polite, kind, fun. The country is a mess and completely out of control. There’s no consequences for bad behaviour. It’s going to get worse and worse and worse.

The UK is seeing a significant surge in young people using high-powered catapults to target, injure, and kill wildlife, with groups actively filming the abuse and sharing it on social media. Animal welfare charities and police forces are pushing for stricter legislation and severe consequences to combat this escalating issue.

The Scale of the Problem
Social Media Trends: Incidents are frequently driven by trends on platforms like TikTok and WhatsApp, where youths share sickening footage of torturing wild animals.
Impacted Wildlife: Primary targets include waterfowl (swans, geese, ducks), pigeons, and squirrels. Rescues have reported birds with severe head, neck, and eye trauma from high-velocity ball bearings.
National Operations: In response to the crisis, a UK-wide coalition of wildlife professionals launched Operation Lakeshot to monitor, track, and stamp out catapult-related animal cruelty.
Current Legal Repercussions
While it is not strictly illegal to own or carry a catapult in the UK, using one to harm animals carries steep penalties:
Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981: It is an offence to intentionally kill, injure, or take any wild bird. Offenders can face unlimited fines and up to 6 months in jail.
Animal Welfare Act 2006: Causing unnecessary suffering to any protected animal or wildlife can lead to prosecution.
Prevention of Crime Act 1953: If a catapult is carried with the intention of causing injury, it can be classed as an offensive weapon. Carrying an offensive weapon in public without a valid reason carries a maximum penalty of 4 years in prison.
What Campaigners Want Changed
Due to the ease with which cheap, unregulated catapults can be purchased online (even by children), campaigners are actively lobbying the government for stronger measures:
A ban on catapult sales to anyone under the age of 18.
Classifying high-powered catapults as dangerous weapons rather than just toys.
Giving police greater stop-and-search powers to confiscate them in public.
Local councils (like Spelthorne and Runnymede) have already begun trialling Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs), which allow police to issue immediate fines to anyone carrying a catapult.
If you suspect or witness a catapult crime in progress, you should call 999 immediately. For past offences or to provide intelligence on suspects, you can call 101 or report it via your local police force's online portal.

“Certain technical jobs are safe- plumbing, electricians, brickies, engineers etc.”

this is a myth. These jobs are being automated. They’re not safe, in fact they haven’t been for decades

its like people forget about automation now AI has hit the office workers

Lockdown lockdown lockdown. It was a year. Get over it

Mine didn't. My mother was always top of the class, but had to leave school at 14 for an unskilled job to support the family. When I was at school, most people were still leaving at 16. It has not been a happy, rosy story for everyone.

@PoppingZits there would be consequences for bad behaviour in this house

and there are many teens like ours who are fun, kind, social, ambitious, whether they find their place here or elsewhere will remain to be seen. But we are not going to let ours sink into a pit of despair thinking it’s all pointless and waste their precious youth in their rooms online.

Kids who hurt animals are the psychopaths of the future. We all know that they will be in jail eventually.

Some of those on benefits go onto TikTok to slag off mental health services, the same services that give them diagnoses to claim their benefits in the first place. They show off what shite they have bought from the internet with their benefit money courtesy of the tax payer. If that’s not bad enough they have their hair dyed, their rubber lips full of filler, fake nails, bottle of booze and a wad of cannabis. The tax payer pays for this! Fucking joke of a country!!! Benefit recipients should show exactly how they are spending their money. Give them vouchers instead of cash in hand,