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.

Young people do have it tough . I wouldn’t like to be starting out today .

Plus, climate change is acceleration. According to BBC news, a super El Niño could happen this year. Anyone know what that means?

Labour's policies are also making it harder for struggling companies to hire young people, or anyone come to that! I'm particularly thinking of the chance s in NI
Labour don't seem to be able to anticipate the unintended effects that their policies will have. The renters reform bill, recent additional taxes for landlords and changing the relief given on mortgage costs is another example...

Oh mine too, blows my mind that they campaign against people having access to homes (like they did).

You’ve never experienced a current generation having a noticeably worse standard of living than a previous one through and that is key.

Economic peaks and troughs are blips not wholesale societal changes.

You keep repeating this, but Ireland which is touted as an example of the world's biggest corporations relocating there due to lower taxes, has 60% of its population between ages 18 - 34 living with, or being supported by their parents. All that big investments haven't translated to jobs for the young on the ground. It is not as simple as don't tax the big corporations and jobs will come. The numbers don't bear that out.

My, I don´t even live in Britain and know two very ordinary Englishmen who retired at 49. Did very well in their respective employment. Boomers.

I don't think it's significantly worse now. I think expectations have changed.

I'm in my 40s and was never able to get on the housing ladder due to being single. All of my friends who did were in couples and virtually all of them had parental help with a deposit.

I recently watched 'The family' on Youtube, the 1970s first 'reality' show where they were bemoaning how it was impossible to get a council house as a young working family so the daughter, husband and baby were living with her parents.

I've also recently watched early 80s Only fools and horses talking about cuts to social services, failing NHS, crap YTS schemes meaning Rodney has to work with Del Boy, can't get a proper job and them both having to share a flat with Grandad.

I think it also depends where you live. I'm in the South-West I know someone with 6 kids, the eldest 21 who works full-time in a supermarket and has done for years - rents a flat with his GF who works full-time in Costa. A 20 year old who's had three full time jobs in the last couple of years as didn't like the 1st two, and an 18 year old who works part-time in a chain restaurant while finishing her college course. None of them have been out of work since being old enough to work and definitely didn't have to apply for hundreds of jobs.

I work with lots of people in their late 20s, all making decent enough money. Only one still lives at home, the rest are in flat shares with partners or friends. They don't report having had extended periods not being able to find a job or making hundreds of applications either.

The only young people I know who aren't working are signed off sick.

I think that’s an important point.
When people quote net migration is down, they are neglecting to realise that the emigration out of this country is increasing of those that are richer and those who have realised the cost of living here is bad, and take their employable skills to other countries.
This is not good.
Added to which the financial level of those that are immigrating to here are not likely to be as financially beneficial to the country as a whole as those that have left.

I don't actually know anyone who retired earlier than about 57, and several friends (including DH) were still working at 72, one of them ran a section of the Crossrail/Elizabeth Line construction phase. Head hunted to do it.

I remember back around the 2008 era people talked a lot about how intergenerational living would start to become normal. The housing market isn't getting better but I'm not so convinced that's happening. I think people from our culture simply don't want to live with in laws in most cases.

While I agree that this isn't the first generation to have it worse than their parents the last time this happed they didn't have access to reliable contraception. We do and when it's a choice between not having kids or having them in what we consider to be poor circumstances more people choose not to.

I also worry about the younger generation. We have a lack of jobs, but also many jobs don't pay enough to live well on. For example, look at the median salary vs the cost of renting a home, let alone saving for a deposit and income multipliers for a mortgage.

It's fine saying "the rich are leaving the UK instead of creating jobs here", but if the jobs they create are minimum wage pub and cafe work - obviously that's helpful for a first step - but it isn't enough to live independently on.

Salaries in the UK are so bad in general, that unless you have family help or bought a house years ago, the British dream (own home, garden, car, annual holiday, the odd meal out, 2 kids) feels very out of reach for most working people.

Glad that some had a positive experience and that's how it should've played out but for many kids it was 6months then ta ta and on to the next kid.
Mind you that's all ancient history now along with the retail Saturday,hairdresser etc jobs which gave many of us our own money and a taster of working.

So there is no issue with youth unemployment, it’s just laziness? JFC.

Can you read?

Yes privileged to be able to walk into a job easy.
Privileged to be able to afford a house.
Privileged to be able to be given a council tenancy.
Privileged to be able to walk out of one job and into another.
Privileged to be able to go to university without paying fees.
And the young now have…… you were saying……

True.
But this has been happening for decades before this current batch of youngsters was even born.
Quite why the youngsters are voting for the Green Party God only knows.
As you say they can’t see it,but then a certain amount of brainwashing goes on in University.

But all those times were temporary.
This is a bit like the boiling frog analogy.
Its been gradually getting worse in many ways but very slowly over years and decades even.
So slowly that people don’t notice,maybe that’s the idea.
House prices and the cost of living is out of control.Certainly house prices have been out of control for decades.

It didn’t seem temporary at the time.

Is that what you think we should compared ourselves to? Honestly this is part of the problem. Too much of that mentality.

So why is the economy in better shape than it was when they were elected? We were in recession in the last two quarters of 2023. There is no “taxing and taxing”, I personally am paying the same tax taxes as I did in 2024.

But it shouldn’t be privileged, it should be the norm - apart from the last because part of the problem is that degrees have been devalued.

Oh absolutely.
That was my response to the poster who believed the comments being made on this thread was because people on Mumsnet were privileged.But nearly everyone had the same chances back then.

Some people look at the past with rose-tinted glasses, but there’s always been peaks and troughs.

But we haven’t had the peak since the 08 crash, that’s the point. Productivity & wages haven’t recovered from that

In better shape? With all the job losses and pub and restaurant closures?

You might be paying the same taxes, but your personal allowance has not increased with inflation so your net pay is worth much less than it was.

But most people are leaving because of the inheritance tax changes as lots of other countries don't have IHT.

Just read McFadden's messages. All Labour want to do it tax and tax and pay more and more in benefits. Do you think that he was lying?