Worst isn’t over for young people looking for jobs

Jun 1 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

SUGGESTIONS that the recession is slowing down or bottoming-out should be welcomed, it is important to seek to present a degree of clarity and honesty about current economic dynamics, without talking the region down or painting a falsely optimistic picture.

If the news is ‘less bad’, however, it doesn’t mean the worst is over in terms of job losses; there is a significant lag between the economy picking up and increasing employment levels.

Young people’s unemployment rates and the increase in this rate since the recession started have been significantly higher than other workers. The unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds is now over 16% and has risen twice as fast as the rate for 24-49 year olds and three times the rate of workers over 50.

Unemployment among young people has been slowly rising as the economy has restructured. The long-term decline in manufacturing has had a particular impact; in the mid-1990s, 19% of 18-24 year olds were employed in this sector, last year this was down to just 9%. Today, young workers tend to be concentrated in relatively low-paid, low-skilled and less secure jobs in the service industries.

Young workers are often the first to go in difficult economic times and find it much harder than older workers to regain employment if they do lose their jobs. Of particular concern is long-term unemployment for young workers. 120,000 unemployed young workers, almost one fifth, have been out of work for over 12 months, this is likely to increase to 200,000 by the end of the year. In many ways out-of-work young people suffer the same impact as older workers; loss of self-esteem and the increased likelihood of poor physical and mental health, but it can affect young workers skills, earnings and progression more.

The Government has committed to responding to this challenge, including the ‘young person’s guarantee’ (of a job of training for all under-25s who have been unemployed for a year) from January 2010 and a significant pledge to increase apprenticeships plus the emerging ‘Future Jobs Fund’ – part of an attempt to, in the words of the Chancellor, “…preventing a new generation … becoming a lost generation.” Public procurement for large contracts, such as Building Schools for the Future, should also demand apprenticeships for young workers including specific gender targets, if we are going to avoid the worst impacts of the recession on young people.

Kevin Rowan is regional secretary of Northern TUC