Cost of living. Teens with no jobs

[monkeysox]

The whole COL crisis is exacerbated by huge supermarket chains (one example) who are making huge profits. They don't employ as many young people (automation) so the cost of the kid's needs falls on the parents who have huge bills themselves.
I always had a Saturday or evening job.
Businesses aren't hiring nearly as much as 30 years ago.
Aibu?

What are the employers costs in Aus for employing a 16yr old? What is the tax situation?

Here in the Uk they quickly mount up so an employer may just as well ask an existing employee to do overtime or take on an older, more sensible, worker.

It is concerning, my DD has just graduated and the would like to work in conservation or ecology .
The whole sector seems to rely on volunteers ,the most jobs advertised are for senior levels, there aren't any entry jobs. They seem to want people to work for free . She has lots of volunteer surveying opportunities by local wildlife trusts etc but no one is employing.
I noticed when we visited London zoo almost everyone with who worked there had a volunteer badge or t shirt on.
Retirement age has increased so people are having to work longer to 66/ 67 rather than retire between 60 and 65.
Re minimum wage at the moment I think it still is cheaper to employ young people and conversely this can detrimentally impact them when they get to 18+. We live near a seaside town, its very well known locally that once you turn 18 the cafes/ice cream parlours /gift shops etc will stop giving you shifts ( on the zero hour contracts) and give them to the 16/17 year olds as they are cheaper. Doesn't matter how hard youve worked or how reliably you are once your 18 you're out.
It's also harder to get a "Saturday " job, a lot of retail, bar work etc want you to work evenings , both weekend days, be available 24/7 at short notice which isn't conjusive to doing Alevels or studying. Working 9-5 Saturday only seems to be a thing of the past.
It is much harder for young people now, especially if you don't have the right connections, most youngsters I know have found work via family.or friend's.

As I said, it makes it cheaper for them to employ Indians than local people.

I've worked in the same shop for 25 years there just aren't enough customers to justify the hours. On a Saturday we used to have 5 all day plus manager now we have 1 manager plus 1 person all day and 2 half days.
Sorry didn't mean to quote and can't work out how to change it!

There is a lot of misinformation on this thread. Minimum wage is £8 for under 18s.

Supermarkets operating margins are low single figures.

Sainsbury’s is a public listed company.

Both my teens have had jobs since age 15. My DD coaches in her sport for a local club which she does at an high level and is paid £8 an hour. My DS volunteered at a holiday camp for younger kids and gets paid a small amount by them, this summer he has a job in a different camp paying more as he has experience from the other camp. The bigger name camps don’t hire under 18s.

i appreciate this is unusual and I’m grateful for their opportunities and talents but it’s not impossible.

And have you seen the recent changes adopted for cake sheds? They need to register as a business.

This is what people are saying - things NOW are not as it was for teens even one or two years ago.
It’s all very well people saying “my now 18 year old has been working since they were 14, you just have to try”, there are now a lot of barriers to under 18s as well as far fewer casual jobs.

Agree with this as well. When I was 17 I had a Saturday job in a library, 30 years ago. The same library is entirely run by volunteers now and funded by local businesses and charities.

Not impossible, no. Our local Starbucks just took on a teenager for the holidays. So definitely some jobs out there. But there were also nearly 2,500 unsuccessful applicants….

There is a youth minimum wage? The minimum wage for under 18s is different to that for 18-21 and different again to national living wage for 21+.

Both my nieces got jobs in the local supermarket at 16 though, and one of their boyfriends got a job in a supermarket local to him at 17, so I don’t recognise what the OP is saying.

Barely as they will need to pay relocation costs and the immigrant health surcharge instead. They’re being sent over from India by the Indian company employing them! In the same way we send British people send people over from here to work in British companies in India. They’re
the best people for the job. Bet you wouldn’t want British people taxed twice. Companies like Tata wouldn’t be giving out many Saturday jobs
anyway. Would you prefer Indian companies to take their businesses and wealth elsewhere?

Stop trying to whip up an issue that isn’t there.

The under-18 (£8) and the under-21 (£10.85) minimum wage provisions aren't widely used by big companies, presumably due to the optics/pressure from unions that everyone doing the same job should be fairly paid the same.

Sainsbury's, the National Trust, Marks & Spencer, Tesco all pay 16-year-olds exactly the same as over 21-year-olds (with many paying the Real Living Wage: £13.45 outside London) further disincentivising them to employ teens.

My year 12 has really struggled to find work experience. As have many of his peers. It’s not just about being resourceful etc. His 6th form have acknowledged it’s hard. They haven’t hinted that the students aren’t just trying hard enough.
So your local takeaways etc are always advertising - that’s nice, but many of us have said our local ones are not. You clearly live in an area which isn’t having the same problems as many others.

Supermarkets have notoriously low margins. They need to be run tightly, otherwise they won't break even.

Its just too expensive and risky to hire an inexperienced 18 year old. An older person with some employment history is a better bet.

The kids who will do well in this situation will be those who can think creatively and/or are exceptionally dogged/determined.

@Dutchhouse14 I am an ecologist with 30 years experience. This sector has always been very poorly paid and jobs hard to find. People seem to think if you do environmental work you can just live off the warm glow of doing good deeds. I decided very early on field ecology was not for me - terrible pay and awful hours in the summer. I work in environmental policy which suits me, is much better paid and can’t be done by enthusiastic volunteers. People forget ecologists are actual scientists and not enthusiastic tree huggers ( although I am that as well!)

It is related to immigration.
It may also be related to the minimum wage
It is also related to NI rises.
( not applicable to Indian migrants who work for Indian company)

It's all crazy 😧

Boycott supermarkets and support local business. But we can't because the high street is dead.

Nothing we can do now. The country is full of frogs slowly boiled over the past 20 years to accept the unacceptable.

Yet people in my town think yet another massive Aldi is a good thing. I can't count the number of Aldis we already have, but I can count the number of butchers and greengrocers, and cannot do my weekly shop on any high street in my local area.

Same here in Melbourne, Australia. I live in an inner suburb with a major university campus. Our local supermarket (Woolworths, owned by South Africans) asks in its online recruitment form for applicants to state their ethnicity. DD applied but knew they would not want her, as their staff are almost exclusively of Indian descent.
Glad to say that as she now has her RSA and First Aid certificates she has found a good entry-level job in hospitality.

As someone who works for Iceland, I can confirm that when recruiting for our front line staff in stores, our retail assistants and online picker roles don’t need previous experience.

Home Delivery Drivers need a licence with under 6 points (for insurance purposes). Again experience not strictly necessary as we do train for that role.

We just look for positive attitude, flexibility and good communication skills. Flexibility is a key one. The more flexible you are to work different days, the more likely you are to get a job with us.

Every self-service till interaction you have will eventually result in a loss of a job, minimum wage rises then a job cut, NI up and jobs cut, employ someone recently redundant with huge experience and expertise for the minimum wage, then why employ someone with no experience, drive then you're more likely to be hired, huge cuts in admin roles for all ages due to AI and you have a much bigger pool chasing roles, retail no longer have a weekly workforce and a weekend one, so no need for Saturday staff. Lastly hospitality is on it's knees, so restricted opening hours, so less staff! Last to go, profits, so you can see people don't figure here! I worked in voluntary employment support, we saw this coming, with worse to follow imo as they allow overseas, EU individuals in.

This rhetoric that self service tills cut jobs is nonsense

Retail staff are multi skilled. They’re not employed to just work on a till. They work on the shop floor, the till, the warehouse etc. And they will still have to man the self service tills to support customers who use them.

Apologies. I did start with the name calling. I was cross. Sorry. It is jugdy though as things happen in life and circumstances can change due to death or illness....so not all parents can help their kids with finances despite absolutely wanting to. It's could be seen as cruel and lacking in empathy to not appreciate that....

Last to go, profits, so you can see people don't figure here!

Without profits there would be no point in someone putting in the investment and taking the risk of running a business. Lack of profits is why hospitality is closing.

Same with self-service checkouts - supermarkets operate in an incredibly competitive market. This helps keep costs down for the consumer but without cutting costs they would go bust as they would lose customers due to having to charge higher prices.

Agree, my teens like to meet friends for paninis and drinks in costa for example - after spending nearly £200 a week to fill the fridge, as a single mum with no financial support at all, I can’t pay another £20 per child per week to eat in a cafe. Or driving lessons, or tat…. None of those things are essentials when you’re on a budget but they are the things many teens want to spend money on.
I buy all the necessities, of course. But I agree with the OP, if they want beyond what the parents can afford, it would be nice for them to be able to get some work to pay for it!! Then realise how much stuff costs, how hard you have to work for it and perhaps start saving instead.

Of course people are talking about 18 and 19 year olds, as well as 16 and 17 year olds. Younger than that find it very hard to get any kind of legal work.

Supporting kids into their 20s is a new and privileged thing. Many farming families, families with other businesses/shops, etc have their kids helping out from a young age and always have. If the expectation of supporting someone for more than 20 years had always existed, very few people through the ages would have had kids.

Many teenagers (including mine) work so they can buy what they want - they know I'll block a pair of fancy trainers (and weird protein powders) so they want their own money to buy that.
And some kids do have to contribute to family finances. Not everyone can protect against disabilities, husband walking out/dying, caring for older parents - and yes, of course some people make bad choices.

And surely it's better to have teens working and contributing than everyone sitting around on benefits? I admire working teens.