The scale of youth unemployment scares me. It's like before …

The Guardian, Saturday 19 March 2011

 

The Specials … still play in my head, 'Government leaving the youth on the shelf'

 

'Work will make you free." This sign was hung at the entrance to concentration camps, notably Auschwitz. But this sentiment has been the policy of every government, in various guises, since I was old enough to get a job. When I was 14 and stacking shelves in a supermarket, work did indeed give me money to spend on cider and black, because I lived in the olden days before the ice melted and alcopops were born. My mother's ambition for me was that I might, when I left school, graduate to working at Boots. And from there, work my way up in Boots, and possibly manage to marry someone better than me. Weirdly, none of this materialised, much to her eternal chagrin, but I certainly had a lot of jobs before this one. For which I am thankful.

 

All kinds of jobs! Despite daft careers advice suggesting I become an air hostess or enter the navy, and a traumatic interview at an insurance firm in which I got the decimal point in the wrong place. "Not only should you not work in this office," said the irate man, "you should never be allowed to work in any office."

 

I took this to heart. I was bitterly wounded. But there were, in those days, jobs that didn't involve offices, and I had a different one every week. Indeed, rather as with politicians who have only ever been in the political system, I feel journalism should not be the preserve of those who have never done jobs "in the real world". I can always tell who has never had an actual job. It shows when you are with people who are rude to waitresses because they have never had to serve someone. It shows when people moan about shop assistants in chain stores not caring much about customer service. Clearly, they don't know how boring it is. It shows in the generalised assumption that the person on the checkout has not a thought in their head.

 

To question different kinds of work experience and the value placed upon it may seem obtuse, as the new unemployment figures are predictably dreadful. But if the belief remains that work is indisputably good and not working indisputably bad, what are we to do with the so–called "lost generation"? There is some argument over the figures, but roughly one in five of our 18- to 25-year-olds are out of work.

 

This is happening at a time when education is becoming more expensive. The slash-and-burn aspect of coalition dogma does not make sense unless we accept the price of its policies is to make a pyre of a generation's hopes. The young, we can see, as well as women and children, must bear the brunt of the recession. Public-sector cuts affect women disproportionately, while education cuts and caution among small business affect our youth employment.

 

The miracle of growth appears to involve the sacrifice of our young. If they make it through school, and a stupefying number of exams, and get to college, they will be in debt for a long time. This will force many of them to return home or never to leave. The idea of adulthood as an autonomous state with a home of one's own was once, for some, a rite of passage. Now it is a privilege.

 

Jobs are going to those with experience. To those aged 70, not 17! It is a depressing scenario for all of us, surely? As I read that one in three people over 65 may have dementia, I imagine my children unemployed while I go ploughing on dementedly for ever.

 

Wouldn't a properly angry opposition (Labour?) want to do something about the distribution of work, as well as wealth? Or does it share the ideology that all/any work is magically liberating?

 

Of course, work gives people status and identity and friendships and – hopefully – a living wage, but those with interesting jobs forget too easily that many people do not have fantastic careers. They get by. They get treated pretty badly. Wage–slavery is no picnic, which is why idealists once thought automation would free the masses.

 

On the contrary, two wages are needed to raise a family instead of one. Most discussions on the work/life balance are a coded way of talking about sexual politics and the have-it-all/do-it-all woman has been documented in fiction and in fact. But the phrase "work/life balance" tells us something. Is work the opposite of life? For some, yes. For others, no. Many mothers will take jobs if they can find them and afford the childcare. Unemployment is not a desirable state for many. It can be hugely depressing, but then working in a call centre and having your toilet breaks monitored may not be fulfilling, either.

 

Nonetheless, in some political fantasy world, work is the answer to every question. Those who cannot get work are morally inferior: feckless, workshy scroungers, mothers, people with disabilities or young. They should, if you talk to Tory ministers, be prepared to take on any jobs, as immigrants have done. Where are these jobs?

 

The nostalgia about apprenticeships and manufacturing industries is simply that. Our young are not going to be metal bashers as we are competing in a globalised economy. They may well provide high-end services. This, after all, was the thinking behind sending 50% of our children to college. The other reason was that employers were complaining that too many school-leavers were simply not "employment-ready".

 

The next bunch of graduates released into the community come summer will find it tough. Some will add on vocational skills. Some will endlessly intern for free, and many will wonder why they ever did a degree. Some will be fine because of nepotism and connections. (I note here that as we abolish EMA, we subsidise private schools through their charitable status to the tune of £130m.) Connexions, the advice service for teenagers, is being cut – at a time when young people might need help over tuition fees, competition and careers. Headteachers are furious as they point out teachers are not career advisers.

 

Joined-up thinking may try to incorporate this lost generation into … I don't know … the "big society"? Or are they to be for ever locked out? Where does the lost generation live? Presumably in a separate universe to "the squeezed middle" or "alarm clock Britain". A universe that has it own "direction of travel"?

 

What kind of work/life balance are we talking about now when a life on the minimum wage is but a dream? I like to look forward, not back, and I was lucky, but the scale of youth unemployment scares me. I am not an "All right Jack". Or Jill. For I see too many boarded-up shops and clubs in too many towns, and it's like before, when I was young. And the Specials still play in my head: "Government leaving the youth on the shelf/ This place is coming like a ghost town."

 

I don't know if ghost-faced Osborne knows those words. But someone is humming that tune all right.

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The boldened in particular gets my goat.... Pretty much evidence right there that the Tories are looking after their own and telling the kids of working and middle class parents to "F**k Off....". These b'astards have the nerve to scrap EMA and cut funding to Connexions while they still subsidise PRIVATE SCHOOLS..... WTF?????? Yes, because clearly Jemima and Tarquin are FAR more important than John and Jill.... This is more proof right here that the Tories haven't changed, that it's still them representing the minority of the "rich and connected" rather than representing the vast majority of working people and their children....

 

This isn't so much "deja vu", this is more like a horrendous LSD Flashback to an era that I'd hoped I'd never see again.... One in Five of 18-25 year olds out of work? It's all to familiar to me, I was one of the "Jilted Generation" way back when.. The Prodigy did an album back in this time called "Music For The Jilted Generation", I'm thinking a sequel is on the cards in the next year or two.....

This is so worrying... it still baffles me that the Tories think they can get away with it because Labour almost seem too scared to point out these facts for fear of alienating some of their better-off '97 voters.

This is so worrying... it still baffles me that the Tories think they can get away with it because Labour almost seem too scared to point out these facts for fear of alienating some of their better-off '97 voters.

 

Ed Miliband seriously needs to "man-up" a bit and stop being so scared then.... A hell of a lot of Noo Labour's '97 voters were alienated anyway by the war in Iraq..... Not to mention the fact that it's the middle-classes that are going to be battered senseless with all this as well... Did Ed not watch that prog about the "squeezed middle" that was on a little while back...? People on £40k a year with kids are seriously starting to struggle, and Tuition fees, cuts to grants, child benefit, tax credits, etc, is going to make things worse for them... Ed really doesn't need to be quite so backwards at coming forwards... Like I say, MAN UP MILIBAND.....

 

I read the other week that net unemployment is 40,000 higher than under Labour so I think you are looking at Labour through rose tinted glasses as most of the current unemployment in the UK was under Blair/Brown's watch so it is not a Tory phenomenon.

 

 

I read the other week that net unemployment is 40,000 higher than under Labour so I think you are looking at Labour through rose tinted glasses as most of the current unemployment in the UK was under Blair/Brown's watch so it is not a Tory phenomenon.

 

Unemployment rose sharply under Brown because we were in the middle of a recession, and they still didn't get anywhere near the figures that occurred under Thatcher. Plus, the cuts are only really starting to have an impact so this figure is only going to rise for the forseeable future, far beyond those under Labour.

I read the other week that net unemployment is 40,000 higher than under Labour so I think you are looking at Labour through rose tinted glasses as most of the current unemployment in the UK was under Blair/Brown's watch so it is not a Tory phenomenon.

 

Errr, what Mancunian Giraffe said... Labour during years 97-2007 you had a rather dramatic decrease in the unemployment figures, it was only relatively recently that we hit the skids due to the recession and banking crisis... And they actually did do something about youth unemployment too.....

 

The fact remains that the Tories seem to think that it's acceptable to just betray the aspirations of an entire generation of young people in order to cut the deficit... That's just pretty bloody capricious as far as I'm concerned, because they had nothing to do with it...... If anyone should be getting the shaft, it's the rich and greedy who caused this sh"t....

I read the other week that net unemployment is 40,000 higher than under Labour so I think you are looking at Labour through rose tinted glasses as most of the current unemployment in the UK was under Blair/Brown's watch so it is not a Tory phenomenon.

 

Um, do you not think the fact that unemployment is higher now than it was in the midst of the worst post-war global recession a couple of years ago is a BIT worrying?

Um, do you not think the fact that unemployment is higher now than it was in the midst of the worst post-war global recession a couple of years ago is a BIT worrying?

 

Spot on...

This is genuinely scary stuff. I'm intensely grateful that I graduated when I did - two years later and I'd have been trying to find work just at the time when the $h!t started to hit the fan.

That article raises many hugely valid points - in particular I like that it punctures the myth that young people should just "get on and find something" - whilst it's probably quite true that there are some graduates out there who are being fussy and ignoring jobs that are "beneath" them (I knew of a few), at the same time we simply DON'T have all these low-end jobs that many think we do. The industries that existed 50 years ago DON'T today - Britain is now primarily service-industry focused, and even there companies have for the past few years gradually been shifting operations out to other countries to take advantage of cheap labour.

The axing of Connextions is utterly BAFFLING given all the recent employment stats signifying a greater need than ever for an advice service for the young. It suggests the government are not REALLY paying too much attention to WHAT they're cutting.

Britain also BADLY needs to look at this growing "unpaid intern" culture, which not only takes the absolute p*** out of young people, but is also only ever going to WIDEN the class divide. We're now at the point where simply to gain a bit of work experience, young people are expected to work for free for long periods of time, and certain political parties are even CHARGING them for the privilege of working for them. Clearly the majority of people simply CANNOT afford to do this, and so sit around getting knocked back for job after job because they can't get "relevant experience".

This is genuinely scary stuff. I'm intensely grateful that I graduated when I did - two years later and I'd have been trying to find work just at the time when the $h!t started to hit the fan.

That article raises many hugely valid points - in particular I like that it punctures the myth that young people should just "get on and find something" - whilst it's probably quite true that there are some graduates out there who are being fussy and ignoring jobs that are "beneath" them (I knew of a few), at the same time we simply DON'T have all these low-end jobs that many think we do. The industries that existed 50 years ago DON'T today - Britain is now primarily service-industry focused, and even there companies have for the past few years gradually been shifting operations out to other countries to take advantage of cheap labour.

The axing of Connextions is utterly BAFFLING given all the recent employment stats signifying a greater need than ever for an advice service for the young. It suggests the government are not REALLY paying too much attention to WHAT they're cutting.

Britain also BADLY needs to look at this growing "unpaid intern" culture, which not only takes the absolute p*** out of young people, but is also only ever going to WIDEN the class divide. We're now at the point where simply to gain a bit of work experience, young people are expected to work for free for long periods of time, and certain political parties are even CHARGING them for the privilege of working for them. Clearly the majority of people simply CANNOT afford to do this, and so sit around getting knocked back for job after job because they can't get "relevant experience".

 

Best Post of the Thread so far... Pretty much succinctly puts out the points that The Guardian is getting at.. Myself and the article writer are more-or-less of the same generation (she's a bit older than me though I think), and this is very much ringing a lot of bells for me.. I honestly feel a lot of sympathy for the kids coming up now, because they're being forced to pay for this mess created by a tiny minority of stupid old white men working in banks and another bunch of stupid men working in politics... Women also are going to disproportionately suffer - over 2/3 of the jobs lost will be through making female public sector employees redundant, the changes to Child Benefit, Tax credits and housing benefit will also badly affect women in particular...

 

Axing the funding to Connexions is just absolutely beyond barmy... Do they honestly think that teachers are now going to become careers' advisors...??? FFS, like teachers don't have enough to do, as well as the whole sort of THEY'RE NOT ACTUALLY QUALIFIED TO ADVISE ON CAREERS thing that the "gibberment" seems to be forgetting about... How can a teacher advise someone on which career path to take, there's a lot more to careers advice and planning than just making one or two suggestions, which is why universities tend to have a bloody whole DEPARTMENT dedicated to it....

Um, do you not think the fact that unemployment is higher now than it was in the midst of the worst post-war global recession a couple of years ago is a BIT worrying?

 

Isn't Britain in recession still ? I am not fully up to speed on UK politics but I do read the online versions of the papers and recall that you had negative growth in the last quarter of the year so the economies of the world are still going through tough times.

 

High unemployment is inevitable in a time of economic strife but the best way to create jobs to get people back into work is to get the pain out of the way quickly rather than have it linger on and on which is why it is better for the cuts to happen all at once and fast so that the pain is out of the way quicker.

 

The private sector needs to be free of red tape and over regulation to create jobs too and I understand the Conservatives are doing just that too.

 

 

 

 

Isn't Britain in recession still ? I am not fully up to speed on UK politics but I do read the online versions of the papers and recall that you had negative growth in the last quarter of the year so the economies of the world are still going through tough times.

 

High unemployment is inevitable in a time of economic strife but the best way to create jobs to get people back into work is to get the pain out of the way quickly rather than have it linger on and on which is why it is better for the cuts to happen all at once and fast so that the pain is out of the way quicker.

 

The private sector needs to be free of red tape and over regulation to create jobs too and I understand the Conservatives are doing just that too.

You need two quarters of consecutive negative growth to be in a Recession, which is why Australia just managed to avoid it oh so narrowly thanks to KRudd. We've just had the one after a short run of positive growth, i expect us to obtain that second quarter from Q1 2011.

 

 

You don't quite understand the actual unemployment issue not actually being here to experience it. There are no jobs in the private sector and the Tory's are cutting jobs in the public sector left right and centre and just expecting the private sector to be able to cover this. Business in the UK aren't getting the credit from the Banks to expand and grow their operations meaning they physically can't take on more staff. The very small minority of businesses that can are either internationally diversified and have strong credit elsewhere to fuel their growth [the clothing chain Zara is currently growing at a rate of 10% internationally] or they are funded by the devil [Tesco] or are just big enough in a necessitates market [The other 3 of the big supermarkets]

 

The tory government aren't doing anything to encourage the private sector to employ the 100,000's of people they are laying off from the public sector and they are slashing vital public bodies that help the lower and middle classes find the very small number of jobs there are.

 

The tories can cut all the red tape and regulation they want, this country will Double Dip [No snow for Osbourne to blame it on this time, the utter re****] and unemployment levels will probably double in the next 2-3years.

You need two quarters of consecutive negative growth to be in a Recession, which is why Australia just managed to avoid it oh so narrowly thanks to KRudd. We've just had the one after a short run of positive growth, i expect us to obtain that second quarter from Q1 2011.

You don't quite understand the actual unemployment issue not actually being here to experience it. There are no jobs in the private sector and the Tory's are cutting jobs in the public sector left right and centre and just expecting the private sector to be able to cover this. Business in the UK aren't getting the credit from the Banks to expand and grow their operations meaning they physically can't take on more staff. The very small minority of businesses that can are either internationally diversified and have strong credit elsewhere to fuel their growth [the clothing chain Zara is currently growing at a rate of 10% internationally] or they are funded by the devil [Tesco] or are just big enough in a necessitates market [The other 3 of the big supermarkets]

 

The tory government aren't doing anything to encourage the private sector to employ the 100,000's of people they are laying off from the public sector and they are slashing vital public bodies that help the lower and middle classes find the very small number of jobs there are.

 

The tories can cut all the red tape and regulation they want, this country will Double Dip [No snow for Osbourne to blame it on this time, the utter re****] and unemployment levels will probably double in the next 2-3years.

 

Very well said. It's all very well and good to claim that it's better to "get the pain out of the way quickly" but I'd counter that by saying that the model Labour had in the last election and would probably be running with now (smaller initial cuts etc.) would be far less painful in the long run.

 

The consequences of the cuts grow exponentially to the size of the cuts because there's so many knock-on effects (rising unemployment, more money having to be spent on benefits, less income tax generated). I've never studied economics or politics in my life and I can still understand that. The way the Tories are going, an entire generation is going to be crippled by not being able to get into work. Not a good thing, any way you look at it.

I graduate this summer, so i'm right in the centre of the lost generation.

 

I started at Uni in 2007 just as things started to go belly up, my thoughts then were that it'd all be picking up as i go to leave. Far from it.

 

I applied to Capital One for their Grad Scheme at 11pm on Thurs night, less than 12 hrs later i was given the knock back saying I didn't have what they were looking for and I stated I was expecting a 2:1!!!! I have had to work to put myself through uni and this means i haven't had a chance to get any internships done as the Summer was vital for earning money to pay for rent, this leaves me without experience and at the bottom of the heap. I will be the first person from either side of my family to have a degree from uni and despite all my other skills and real world experience i don't have the connections to get into these jobs. I fell at the final hurdle for an internship with National Semi Conductor through the Saltire Foundation because i didn't have enough experience!!!!!!!!

 

About 10% of my class have jobs, which is pretty much an all time low and unusually poor for Dundee Uni who are now a top40 uni [My degree is worth more than when i started but if i'd gone to St Andrews i'd have been a lot better off. That is if they'd have overlooked the fact that i was from a High School minutes away to see my brilliant Higher results and actually let me in.]

 

It's pretty disheartening to be graduating with absolutely no job prospects. I am currently hoping CapGemini of France will give me a job [They only want a 2:2!] or HMRC will give me a full time call centre job in Dundee for the remainder of tax season so i can leave Morrisons. I'm not ungrateful for having a job, i'm rather thankful for it, but the senior management of the store including the personal manager are the biggest shower of arsehole's i've ever met. The personal manager is a raging bitch, a lying one at that. One of the ADM's clearly has short person syndrome and is just an utter c**t. The store manager is clueless and this is before we start talking about the people that work there. To be fair to the colleagues of the author a good 60% of the people at Morrisons in St Andrews can count the number of Brain cells they have on one hand, of the remaining 40% about 75% of them only require two hands. It's a total moron magnet.

 

If I can't get a job, which is looking very likely, i'm going to continue teaching myself Norwegian and then go to the University of Oslo in August 2012 and get a second degree in economics and try my luck at the 2016 job market.

Very well said. It's all very well and good to claim that it's better to "get the pain out of the way quickly" but I'd counter that by saying that the model Labour had in the last election and would probably be running with now (smaller initial cuts etc.) would be far less painful in the long run.

 

The consequences of the cuts grow exponentially to the size of the cuts because there's so many knock-on effects (rising unemployment, more money having to be spent on benefits, less income tax generated). I've never studied economics or politics in my life and I can still understand that. The way the Tories are going, an entire generation is going to be crippled by not being able to get into work. Not a good thing, any way you look at it.

I did a little bit of economics in 2st and 2nd year. More than enough to disprove every single one of the lies that Cameron/Clegg and the uber moron Osbourne comes out with. Regardless of how much bigger Labours debt was than they thought it was, the system they had [Which is being followed by the likes of Germany and Australia, the latter to return to surplus rather than rid a deficit as the last big recession left such a scar the word deficit has the media whip up a Force 6 Hurricane in a cappuccino cup and the scale for hurricanes only goes up to 5] would have worked far better in the long run. If you ignore consequential effects then yes, it takes longer Labour's way and we have to pay more interest, but when you factor in even the smallest of knock on effects, like you mentioned the cost becomes far greater. I'm sure the books will look just wonderful this year compared to last but we're going to be Nu-Ireland in 2years time and our credit will be getting down graded to AA or even A where as had we re-elected Labour, or even a LibLab government we'd never be in danger of losing out AAA status.