By Eddie Barnes
EARLIER this year, our UK Youth Poll – sponsored by Nationwide – exposed the rising tide of financial anxiety among younger generations.
On a list of what worries them, ‘financial worries’, ‘job security and unemployment’ and ‘housing instability’ came top. Shockingly, the number of young people who think they’ll be better off than their parents has halved in just 12 months.
There’s a reason for this. Youth employment rates are well below the levels seen in the 2000s and 2010s and currently just under 60%. Worse, as we have learned in recent weeks, nearly one in eight young people are now officially ‘NEET’ – or not in education, employment or training. Former health secretary Alan Milburn, who has been tasked with recommendations on how to support these young people back into work, has rightly described this as a “moral crisis”. It’s a crisis feeding through into the data, as more and more young people express their fear that a stable job is out of their reach.
Here at the John Smith Centre, we wanted to learn more about how young people feel about work and their own circumstances. We commissioned Focaldata over the summer to ask 500 16–29 year olds a series of questions relating to work. Here are three key findings:
1. Young people overall aren’t 'shirkers' – they want to work
With increasing numbers of young people signing up onto health-related benefits, so the narrative has emerged that today’s young people are slackers, snowflakes, and shirkers. Our data suggests this is nonsense.
- 63% want full-time work
- 75% think work leads to being more respected
- 78% think work allows financial independence and security
Most young people want to work. The danger is that, without good jobs readily available, too many feel the harm not just to their financial security but also to their social standing too.
2. Young people want government to do more to support them into good jobs
We asked a series of questions about the level of government intervention available.
- Only a third think govt work support is good enough and only 15% think politicians are interested in helping them into work
- Only two fifths (41%) think the education they received prepared them for the world of work
- Half say they have seriously contemplated moving abroad for work
They’re not wrong. Here’s what Mr Milburn had to say in the interim report to his review earlier this year:
“Running through every conversation conducted by this Review – whether with employers, mayors or charities – and in every part of the country, was the same diagnosis. There is neither a system nor a plan to increase youth participation. Worse than that: the institutions that were designed for a different era, a different cohort and a different set of problems, are now escalating rather than defusing the NEET crisis.”
“Time and again the system from education through health to welfare fails to enable labour market participation. Instead, all too often it ends up putting young people on a path to a life on benefits. These faultlines are limiting the opportunities for too many young people to learn or earn.”
Again, it’s worth repeating. Young people want to work. But all too often they are being brought up in a school system that doesn’t help them get ‘work-ready’, and a labour market that isn’t geared to tool them up.
3. NEETs are falling off the ladder
As we’ve said in previous polls of young people, it’s always important to stress that there is not one ‘Gen Z’ out there. Like the rest of society, it’s a highly heterodox group. For some young people, life still looks good: and indeed, the top line figures show that most young people are optimistic about finding a job that fits their talents, skills and abilities.
But for others, growing up in the UK is miserable and our poll reveals a chasm in attitudes between those young people in work and those not in education, employment or training. For example, only a third of NEETs are confident they could find a job right now, compared to more than 60% of those in work. Those one in eight young people risk being cut off from the rest of society.
Our view
The upshot is as follows:
- As if it weren’t already obvious, focus must be on those young people at the bottom: many young people remain optimistic but those out of work are in danger of giving up on Britain. Those one million NEETs need our attention.
- Alan Milburn’s report is therefore not a moment too soon. Young people are demanding that politicians and wider society steps up and help them: we need more apprenticeships, a school system that helps young people get work-ready, and more businesses willing to take them on.
- It’s time to end the ‘snowflake’ caricature of young people: broadly speaking, this is a generation that really wants to get stuck in and work to build a better country.
At the John Smith Centre we campaign for young people to be given the opportunity to play their full part in society. We need a new generation of active citizens and leaders if the country is to be renewed. It’s vital too for our democratic health, because financial pain and economic hardship lead directly to disappointment and disillusion with politics and liberal values.
We’ll be publishing more polling and focus groups over the coming months seeking to keep the spotlight on young people and their needs and priorities.
For enquiries about this polling, please contact our Centre Director Eddie Barnes.
