It was announced last week that cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood will lead a review into the coalition government’s strategy on tackling youth unemployment. The issue is undoubtedly a pressing one. This month’s figures show that despite the overall number of jobless people falling, youth unemployment rose slightly to almost a million. It is also significant that one in three unemployed people aged 18 to 24 have been out of work for more than a year. In light of this, the government must take action – but what can be done to get young people into work?
As well as looking at how to tackle youth unemployment, we need to consider how the discussion is being framed. The acronym ‘NEET’ (Not in Education, Employment or Training) is widely used in policy circles, but it dehumanises young people struggling to find an employer willing to give them a chance, or a decent apprenticeship in their local area. As well as economic factors, we need to take into account the psychological effects that unemployment – particularly long-term unemployment – is having on the many hundreds of thousands of young people fighting for their right to a reliable income.
As part of IPPR’s Condition of Britain programme, we are investigating why so many young people are NEET – particularly compared to their counterparts in other countries – and how we might effectively abolish this horrible category from our national consciousness. Just over half of young people who are not in education, employment or training are actively seeking work (579,000), and an upturn in the jobs market would undoubtedly bring these numbers down.
But youth unemployment isn’t caused by a lack of suitable jobs alone: we need to go back further, and look at our education system. Unlike Germany and the Netherlands, for example, the UK has a weak vocational education and training system, and a fragile apprenticeship framework . A number of recent reviews – notably those by Alison Wolf and Doug Richard – have confirmed this problem, but coordinating training pathways for those young people not going down the traditional A-level-to-university route is yet to be seriously considered.
Alongside a lack of clear paths to employment that don’t involve a university degree, young people who do not continue in education find themselves in an unsuitable welfare and benefits system. Those claiming JobSeeker’s Allowance (JSA) are faced with a strictly ‘work-first’ regime, aimed at rapidly finding them a job: this doesn’t help ensure that young people acquire the foundation of education that is necessary to build a successful career. What’s more, if there are no suitable jobs available, they can spend an indefinite period unemployed.
For those not claiming JSA, the other route open to them is inactive benefits such as Employment and Support Allowance or Income Support. But these risk young people drifting into long-term unemployment. Finally, some youngsters try to make their way through an often confusing landscape of further education and vocational courses, with little financial support.
Reform should create a distinct benefits, training and work track for young people, separate from the adult system, through which they can advance their learning and work goals simultaneously without drifting into long-term inactivity.
Underpinning such a system would be a form of financial support – perhaps called ‘universal youth credit’ – available to young people without other sources of income, and conditional on their participation in learning or searching for a job. The priority would be to ensure that young people acquire a basic level of education that enables them to enter the labour market and advance to higher-level learning or a job with prospects or training. The backstop of a job guarantee would prevent long-term unemployment.
The rise of temporary, fixed-term employment means it takes longer for young people to find long-term work, while the decline in intermediate-level jobs can leave them stuck in poor-quality, low-paid positions. And though some employers take seriously their responsibility to train and give opportunities to the next generation, others complain about the severe inadequacies of the schools system rather than rolling up their sleeves and getting involved. What’s clear from all this is that the current system is failing young people. Reform in the education and welfare system, and better practise from employers, are needed before the trend for growing youth unemployment can be significantly reversed.
Graeme Cooke is Research Director at IPPR