With Britain now feeling the brunt of this global recession and unemployment now touching 2 million, young people are at risk of being some of the hardest hit victims of the downturn.
There are already warning signs that this is the case, as more school leavers and graduates struggle to find jobs. Research published by the Local Government Association last week also suggests one in four workers made redundant between October and December were aged between 18 and 24.
The Labour government has made some welcome moves to try and help young people at this difficult time. 35,000 extra apprenticeship places will be created for young people and adults over the next year – bringing the total number of places in the coming year to over a quarter of a million.
But more action is needed to help those young people leaving school and not going into education or training and finding it hard to get a job. The government’s new “September Guarantee” – which ensures all young people leaving compulsory education are offered a suitable place for further learning or training – needs to be more widely publicised. And ministers need to ensure local colleges and training providers are able to meet the rise in demand this autumn.
Likewise graduates leaving university this summer will be entering the toughest job market for nearly a decade. Annual graduate recruitment fairs have been scaled back in some areas and leading graduate employers are simply not taking on as many recruits as before. Graduates will be increasingly competing against more experienced workers who have been made redundant elsewhere. And the decline in graduate jobs also threatens unemployment for people with lower or no qualifications as graduates turn their sights on non-graduate vacancies.
Skills Secretary John Denham’s National Internship Scheme is a good start, but limited three month internships – on low pay – is not enough to solve the problem. Not only do we need to ensure that help is provided to help those struggling for work now but we cannot afford to neglect the next generation. Those at school now will be the workers entering employment as the economy hopefully improves.
So we need to continue investing in education and skills through the downturn – supporting young people through college, apprenticeships and university, giving them high quality careers advice and pressing ahead with the roll out of Labour’s new Diplomas which will ensure that vocational training and work experience is on an equal footing to traditional academic study.
Figures have shown that there are record numbers of applicants applying to university this year but there will be more competition than ever for places. The government need to ensure that more young people have the opportunity to go to university in the coming years.
But let’s remember that just at the time when we should be investing to get us through the downturn and to make sure Britain is ready to take advantage of the upturn, the Tories actually want to cut public spending by £5 billion. They’ve refused to say if they’ll protect funding for training, university places, Education Maintenance Allowances or apprenticeships. This is on top of their opposition to Diplomas and education for all to 18 and their existing plans to cut £1 bn from Train to Gain.
It’s clear that David Cameron learnt little from the Thatcher years when hundreds of thousands of young people were left to join the dole leading to long-term youth unemployment peaking at over half a million in June 1985 – two and a half years after the end of the early 1980s recession.
We won’t be repeating the Tory mistakes of past recessions when people were left to sink or swim on their own. But in the coming months our government must take more action to ensure a generation of young people don’t go under.