Young people have had a hard time during the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. Youth unemployment spiked and has only recently started coming down again. But the headline of unemployment hid other, longer-standing challenges facing young people in their efforts to find a job. Over recent decades it has taken young people longer to find secure work, and more and more of them have typically experienced periods of instability moving in and out of low-hours, low-paid jobs, or cycling between “low pay and no pay.”
As a result, young workers are far less likely to be members of unions. In response, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and its member unions have been working on a strategy to campaign around issues of interest to young people both in their work and with wider issues such as housing. They are due to report their progress so far to their annual conference in Brighton this week.
The mechanisms that previously helped young people find decent jobs have gradually been breaking down. The provision and quality of careers guidance is patchy and advice provided to unemployed young people is driven by a culture of targets for job applications, no matter whether the jobs applied for offer appropriate opportunities for training and development.
Politicians have trumpeted apprenticeships as a way to address these acknowledged problems, but time and time again, evaluations show that although some offer good quality training and a route to a career path, this is by no means always true.
The Growing Precariat
As a result, young workers are increasingly finding themselves in low-skilled, low-paid, and insecure work. They form a large part of the workforce in sectors such as hospitality, catering, and retail where this kind of precarious work is common.
These occupations have long been the areas where many young people find their first jobs. But in the past there have been routes into management career paths in those sectors, or into jobs requiring higher skills and pay. Those “ladders” have been gradually dismantled because of the way the career structures have changed. Young people are increasingly expected to navigate complicated labor markets, moving between employers, rather than progressing gradually up an established career ladder.
