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?

Precisely. I’m an immigrant and was no doubt appointed to my job ahead of British applicants. Because I was better! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just been talking to some young ppl and where they work, trampolining places, play gyms etc all taking on for the summer holidays? Try sooner rather than later might need DBS

If you were a teen after 1963 then you did have a contract of employment even if your employer didn’t give you a written one. Same today - people seem to think they need their employer to hand them a piece of paper before they have a contract, which is not true.

The government could make it easier and cheaper for businesses to employ them. I know you're talking about big companies, OP, but lots of teens used to be employed by smaller businesses, but they say with the massive amount of rules and paperwork, it's just not worth it. Also, many teenagers would be happy to work for lower wages, because some money is better then none, and the skills you learn are invaluable. As under 18s can't so some of the things older people can, eg alcohol, then it's valid to pay them slightly less. If the government got rid of tax/NI/other costs for employers, more young people could have jobs, which would be great for them and the country generally-there's so many teenagers doing damage every weekend and all over summer, and having at least some of them employed would reduce this (one of the local kids who was always smashing stuff up now has a job in a pub, and the bus stop hasn't been damaged since!)

I agree mainly, but they already do pay them less. It's £8 an hour if under 18. Do you think it should be even less than that?

It is not just the minimum wage. The government seems to be going out of its way to try and wreck the economy. The Net Zero thing alone is so destructive and a fraud as far as reducing CO2 is concerned as it ignores anyCO2 produced abroad so is just off-shoring our CO2 production and our industry. The tax regime, including uncertainty over windfall taxes, stops inward investment and pushes businesses abroad.

If we had proper economic growth then there would be more jobs.

Labours genius idea to make hiring young people expensive and pointless hasn’t helped.

If they are Goan they likely have Portugese dual nationality.

Plus holiday pay!

The more expensive it is to employ younger workers, the less jobs there are going to be for them

I don’t think India allows dual nationality.

This seems like a really poorly thought-through conspiracy theory.

Dividends to shareholders are public record, so if they were reporting one number as "profit" and then paying out far more, this would be trivially traceable. Starbucks UK reports tiny profits, because it uses accounting tricks to move profit to lower tax jurisdiction - but this does show up in dividends. This does not happen with supermarkets. It seems much more likely that supermarkets in an industry that is highly competitve, with fairly small barriers to entry. The exact scenario where Econ 101 would tell us to expect thin profit margins.

My employer employs teenagers, but it's becoming rarer in other companies.

Oh so let’s just exploit them then.

It's not very much money..... what can you get for a tenner. I think you are being mean

If you can’t afford to keep children. Don’t have them.

Oh, my mistake - I didn't realise Goans taking up their entitlement to Portugese citizenship had to renounce their Indian citizenship? In answer to the previous poster then, they are likely Portugese;

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/brexit-to-hit-goans-using-portuguese-route-to-uk/story-QG3NfxUOJjRfUXJh0YEUDN.html

Plenty of IT jobs in Ireland, it’s hard to get staff who will stay. Where dh is for example, they tend to get graduates who stay long enough to get their experience on the cv then they’re gone

The boss of next went into detail about why labours policies have directly caused next issues with hiring younger people in many ways

Tax the rich!

I worked in the industry for many years, when I started the margin was 6% profit (low for a business) it's now 3% profit.VAT has increased over the years to 20% (that's on sales - not profit). MInimum wage, employer NI contributions, business rates, corporation tax, energy bills, water bills, the cost of fuel for delivery trucks, pension contributions and the actual cost of food - everything has gone up leaving very little for the businesses. Supermarkets are not making a large profit - that's simply not true. If you want to blame anyone, blame the govt.

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying but we have all created a life that doesn’t lend itself to jobs for teens. Milk rounds? No more. Paper rounds? No more. Saturday retail jobs? Shops closing every week as we all buy online? Waiting staff? Cost of living stops us from eating out, restaurants closing daily. Babysitting? People aren’t going out as much. Supermarkets? As you say self-serve tips has reduced human content.

Saturday jobs started disappearing when Sunday trading hours came in. Rather than carry on paying extra for people to work Sundays like they did to start with, retailers started to change the contracts so workers had days off in the week instead of Saturdays and Sundays.

My 17 year has part time seasonal chip shop job around A levels.Very Antisocial hrs. We live in holiday resort on south coast so work still around in summer. Harder to come by than before though. Applied to loads of jobs to get it though. All his friends seem to have part time jobs. Hes had a payrise to 9 pound hour as doing well! His first job in uniform shop last summer they took him with no experience so hes been lucky really. He is confident though and performed well in telophone and in person interview.
Other son 21 yr old ( uni student) has not worked for 2/3 years. Work was plentiful here when he was 16 but he had anxiety and shy so did not do anything. I have despaired over him but he has finally got part time work at a local PGL childrens holiday camp doing potwashing over the next few weeks. Pay not bad and he does not have to interact with the public!! . He gets 13.45 an hour plus travel expenses( its in middle of nowhere) and holiday pay. Its through an agency (found on indeed ) Just hope he sticks at it. Also caravan cleaning . I get the same wage as an experienced teaching assistant!

It’s 2.42% of a huge amount though.

For the 2025/2026 financial year, Tesco PLC reported a statutory profit after tax of £1,787 million.