IPR Policy Brief - Youth employment - still waiting for the upturn

Recessions always hit young people hard. Firms’ first response to declining orders is to stop hiring new recruits rather than sacking experienced staff.

Young people disproportionately rely on new hiring to secure employment as they move from education into the world of work and seek to move to jobs closer to their career goals. Yet, the strong jobs recovery over the last two years has seen little increase in employment among young people.

This briefing note, by Professor Paul Gregg (University of Bath, Department of Social and Policy Sciences), draws out the main policy responses from the Coalition Government.

These fall into three broad areas: first, encouraging young people to extend participation in education or training; second, seeking to accelerate the recruitment of young people by employers; and third, to offer valuable work experience to those struggling to make quick transitions from education to employment.

The first and third approaches are showing some success, but overall the policy response to youth unemployment to-date lacks sufficient scale, intensity and local co-ordination.