89. Why are so many young people struggling to get a job?

0:10Hello and welcome to The Rest is Money with me, Robert Paxton. And me, Steph McGovern. Now, we talk a lot on this show about how important education and skills are in helping productivity, growth, wellbeing, everything really. And given we're in kind of results mania at the moment with everything from, you know, your GCSEs, A-levels, BTECs, T-levels, all the different results coming out, we thought it would be a good time to kind of focus on this area a bit more, didn't we, Robert? We did. And that's why we're joined by Lauren Mistry from Youth Employment UK. It's a really important social enterprise, which focuses on what are the conditions we need for young people to make the most of themselves.

0:53And she's the lead author on the Youth Voice Census. It's a project they've been running for years. It asks 11 to 30 year olds across the UK, how they feel about the important stuff, education, employment, everything that really has an impact on their lives. And so here's our interview with Lauren Mistry. Lauren, thank you for joining us because I've got a bit of an obsession about what's going on with young people and, you know, how we engage them all with the world of work, how we make sure employers are doing the right things to attract them. and all of this I think is absolutely vital to our economy, to our well-being and you spend a lot of time talking to young people, I know you've got this census, what is it they're saying to you at the moment about how they're feeling about the world of work and what's going on for them?

1:47Yes thank you and I too am obsessed with young people, with how they're feeling about lots of different issues around working, where they live, where they study, how they're able to engage with training and opportunity. So seven years ago, we set up the Youth Voice Census, and it was really born out of understanding the conversation, the stories young people wanted to tell, not just big data points, big polling moments of what young people are doing, where they are right now, but actually, what's the story? Why do they feel that they are in the positions that they're in? What could help them progress?

2:20And actually, what do they love about where they live, where they work? and where they're studying right now too. So every year in September, we launch what is the U4 Census. And this year will be the seventh data set that we will work through and talk through. We'll launch it on the 19th of September. And this year, young people are keen to tell us about how they are struggling to navigate what comes next for them too. And this is all young people. The U4 Census captures 11 to 30 year olds. So it's a huge data set. It's a huge amount of kind of intersectionality, different year groups, different cohorts, COVID coming in and kind of swooping into their experiences.

2:57We heard last year at length from young people that they were really worried about how much opportunity there was going to be available for them. There was a real sense of high competition that actually there wasn't enough resources to go around, whether that was to visit a dentist, to get mental health support, but in particular to find jobs. We see that again this year too. Young people are worried. only 10 % of young people think there is a quality job for them where they live and in fact most people don't think there's an opportunity at all for them where they live even if you take out that quality part of the conversation which we'll do too so it's a real fear for them as to what will happen and actually when you think about where that leaves young people particularly within their local community we see this year too that young people are really worried they don't feel safe within the local areas they're in four in 10 young people don't feel safe where they live three in 10 young people don't feel safe in their education environment and two in ten young people don't feel safe where they work.

3:51So actually we see this high competition, high fear and that there'll be no opportunities for them but also fear of being left where they are too. Does it matter that they may have to move to find a job? For a lot of young people yes it does and I think it always has for those young people. We know in terms of social mobility, in terms of opportunities that young people feel they can access, actually the cost of living is really high. It's something we see. Young people are really worried about this changing landscape for them too. And it does feel like for young people since COVID-19, and I think for all of us, that every year something new sweeps in.

4:27Perhaps a new war, perhaps a general election, but actually the cost of living crisis has been really consistent for those young people too. They're really worried about what they'll be able to afford, what their families will be able to provide too. And yes, so being able to move for an opportunity isn't something young people are able to do. We see less young people interested in university this year. And there are other really great routes, so parity across the apprenticeship system. But if young people can't move to access those opportunities, they won't, they can't, and they continue to be locked out of it too.

5:00So really importantly, being able to move is a key factor. One of the things that really jumped out to me there from what you said Lauren was this sense of competition and you're saying that young people feeling constant competition with each other are they saying that that's changed and is that a bad thing because that for me is probably something that drove me was competition and I know not everyone's competitive but is this being seen as a kind of negative the sense of competition so in last year's data set it was certainly negative um yes competition can be good and and in the same way that kind of pressure can be too to find an opportunity, it can drive people forward.

5:36What we saw in terms of competition in last year's youth with census, particularly within the free text commentary, was young people feeling like other people were getting more than them. We saw higher instances of discriminatory language from young people about other young people. They all felt like it was somebody else that was getting more than them. And that was because they were women. That was because they were kind of from minoritized backgrounds. You're saying that, you know, young white boys and men are basically saying it's not fair, I can't have these opportunities because there is discrimination in favour of women or ethnic minorities.

6:09That's what the data set was telling us, yes, too. That was the perception of young people. Competition was so high and other people were getting it. For unfair reasons is what you're saying. For unfair reasons, yes, in terms of that language. What we see this year is a bit more of a nuance around some of those conversations too. It's much more individualised this year. Young people still feel like they won't get their opportunities. There aren't enough opportunities for them to exceed and achieve what they might want to, but it does feel like it's personal to them. Were you therefore not surprised when you saw quite a large number of particularly white men, but there were also young white girls in the riots committing what appeared to be serious illegal acts.

6:50I think everyone shares that same sense of shock as to that situation and just real disappointment in terms of where we are as a country. But I do think that we can look at that sense of competition and we can look at media rhetoric and media information that comes out too about young people. This year's youth voice census was open from March till June so it captured some of the early part of the general election narrative. And it was so fast. We asked young people what their biggest issues for the country were, what the biggest issues were in their local area were, anticipating an October election, hoping we'd be able to launch it in September.

7:28But as we then looked through that, as soon as you saw the general election play out, all young people were more worried about the leadership of the country. You saw more stop the boats narrative within the free text commentary than we've ever seen before. what we say and what young people hear and read really quickly permeates their thoughts so I think where young people are feeling so frustrated in a system it's not surprising and as we start to get kind of more information as to who those people were in terms of rioting there'll be people living in frustrating circumstances. You know you were talking about how they're impacted by the media and what they're hearing from politicians and things how did that then manifest in terms of engagement in politics?

8:11That's a great question. And it doesn't. We asked young people, particularly those of our younger cohorts, we asked all young people 11 to 30 what their biggest issues were for the country and within their local area. And then we asked young people who were going to be 18 as the general election hit this year, if they were likely to vote. The younger audiences in the census, so we're looking at kind of 11 to 16, appeared more highly influenced by some of the narrative coming out across government. But it's not until 23 years old that we saw young people were more likely to vote. The 18 to 21 year olds still felt passionately about things, but they didn't really feel like their vote was going to matter.

8:52And they didn't really feel like it was going to make a difference if they voted. They still held these views and opinions of what was wrong with the country, what was wrong with where they lived, but they weren't going to take action to vote against. It wasn't until 23 that you see 80 % likely to vote. I mean, just getting underneath what people are saying to what youth employment thinks is really going on. Is it a perception problem among young white men or is there real unfairness now? Are they just looking at the older generations, people of my generation, and thinking that lot all had it much easier and it's not fair that there's now what you might call equal opportunity or is there unequal opportunity?

9:31Are they being discriminated against? What's your view? I think that the nuance and intersectionality is really, really important. It isn't just about being white, isn't just about being a boy. What I will say is historically, as we've done the U4 census, boys and white boys in particular always felt more confident in education. There was a sense of bravado. I'm going to be okay. I've got great skills, great opportunities. And then as we start to see them out 18 plus or kind of out in the workplace or looking for work, their confidence drops. Young women always tended to feel less confident. They were always less sure about what was going to happen next.

10:05And actually, once they hit 18 or 19, they're like, no, actually, I can do this. There's more sense of them being able to achieve more too. What we've seen across our white respondents this year and white boys is that buoyancy decreasing. We started to notice it last year and it has decreased this year too. You are most likely, our census data tells us, you are most likely to get less opportunity if you are a black respondent, if you are a care leaver, if you are a young person with special educational needs. That is what we see as we ask young people what they get in terms of opportunities to explore work experience, opportunities to develop themselves too.

10:44But what we do see is that white young boys' confidence has decreased around 10 to 15 percentage points across the last couple of years in terms of what they'll be able to achieve. Do you have an explanation for that? To be honest, I think there's lots of reasons. I think part of it comes down to local inequalities and regional inequalities too, in terms of what these young people will get and what these young people will receive. And I think what it's also been that we see this year in particular, a massive buoyancy in Asian confidence. Asian and Asian British respondents have really been feeling much more confident.

11:17They don't always get more in terms of those opportunities, but actually they feel more confident too. And are they relatively more confident than their white counterparts? Yes, by about eight percentage points, more confident that they've got skills to be able to achieve and skills to be able to succeed. And part of that could be because we spent a lot of time trying to equal opportunities for all of those young people. Two, three, four years ago in the Euphoria census, if you weren't white responding, you were getting less. And actually, so they are getting more and they are getting more than they have ever before.

11:49And it's boosting their confidence, not necessarily getting more than their white peers, but those confidence and leaps are happening. It's really fascinating this change in confidence on age as well obviously you know looking at all the different things between gender and race and everything else but the fact that the confidence changes at different points like it jumped out to me when you said women are more confident once they leave the education setting and they're older What? Why? Why? I think in terms of those moments for young women, I think it's about the maturity levels and the abilities and kind of the opportunities that young people have been able to see in the same way that we've spent a lot of time levelling up across race and ethnicity to improve the school careers, work experience opportunities for them.

12:39We've been doing the same for women in work. And actually, I think when you look at young women, they've had some fantastic role models across all sectors and all industries too and I really do think that's paying off in terms of the work too. Yeah because I wonder coming back to just what Robert was picking up on then whether it is that thing now of you know when I remember when I left school and I was doing engineering and things it was very much like you're a woman that's really rare in engineering we're going to give you loads of support we're going to give you and to be fair quite a bit of money to do this because you're so rare and I wonder if and I know it's still the case that there are not enough women working in engineering and other sectors and things but I wonder if it's the case that to Robert's point have we gone too far and left people behind now like young white men and that's part of the problem is actually we keep segregating people rather than going you know focusing on other attributes just like social mobility generally rather than what color you are or what gender you are or anything else.

13:41Do you think that's part of it? I'm not sure because as I was saying earlier, there are certain groups that get less still. In terms of opportunities, in terms of access to local amenities, in terms of access to support, if you are white, you are still on the whole more likely to be getting more support more consistently than anyone else. So I don't know that we've gone too far. Maybe too far is the wrong phrase. I don't think we've gone too far, but just this sense of like, Like every time we focus on helping a particular group that are being left behind, we then leave more people behind rather than bringing everyone together.

14:17I mean, there is this perception versus reality thing. And I certainly wasn't trying to make the case that structural conditions for, you know, young white men are somehow way worse than for other people. But there's obviously a perception among some of them that there is. I mean, I was quite struck on my TV show, The Peston Show. We always take somebody on an internship from an organization called Creative Access. Creative Access have traditionally specialized in giving access into helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, but particularly from an ethnic minorities or groups that are regarded as disadvantaged.

14:54They help them to get into the media. I put out a request on my ex-feed for young people who might be interested to apply. And to be clear, creative access has recently made it explicit that if you happen to be from a disadvantaged background and you're white, you can apply. Now, in the old days, I think that was harder for young white people to apply via creative access. But there is equal opportunities in terms of ethnicity and gender and sexuality in this scheme. But I got a barrage of hate on social media because people read the advert as somehow saying, if you're white, don't apply, even though that's not what it said.

15:37And there is this pent up feeling among certain groups that they're being discriminated against. But my fundamental question is, what do we do about this to create a society in which people genuinely have confidence that opportunities are fairly distributed? It's a really great point. And I think that we see more and more instances of that, not just from a race and ethnicity perspective, but also from a gender one too. And particularly young boys are. And we see a rise in misogyny. We see teachers worried about the conversations happening within school too. And actually, we had to add a whole new question set this year into the youth voice census around discrimination, harassment and language because there was a group of young boys from age 14 to 16.

16:20At the end of the census, we ask them what else they want to tell us. Now, the youth work census is 300 questions long. So the fact they've got any more questions in them is massive. But the young boys were like, we really need to understand harassment. The conversations young boys were in with their peers, they weren't ready and prepared for. How they were talking about young women, how they were talking about young people with special educational needs, how they were talking about young people from different race and ethnicities for them, was worrying these young boys are 14. They don't quite know what to do and they can't fit in.

16:49But I do think probably something to look at in terms of the demography too. When we think about how the world has changed, when we think about austerity, when we think about how that may have impacted and may have brought more white respondents into the census into and under the poverty line, into and under where the cost of living crisis is really important too. And I do think there's probably something to be said around looking at disadvantage and poverty as a factor, not just in terms of race, because I do feel that that will have massively changed. And I think if we can look and explore in terms of your conversation on what we do about it, if we can look and explore that disadvantage, that kind of level of poverty, it is a massive issue.

17:30Those young people eligible for free school meals in the U4 census are consistently 10 to 15 percent less likely to have access to work experience, to have access to things that they should have access to locally. They don't think they can access sports, clubs, trips, opportunities to grow. those enrichment opportunities not just work experience but anything that improves their skills and grows their network they don't get access to so I think what we can do about it is recognize race ethnicity recognize historic inequality but also layer in those other aspects that are important too. The other big thing that I know you've talked to young people about in this census and got some quite big numbers and interesting data from is mental health and the impact that that is having so I know it's something like nearly 40 isn't it of the people you spoke to who said that mental health challenges were a barrier to actually them getting work tell us a bit more about that for all young people one of their biggest barriers to work last year was either anxiety or mental health challenges and more commonly both of those issues they saw so we're asking people to tell us if any at all what barriers they'd have and they could choose up to three.

18:42And so alongside work experience, young people really, really strongly feel like their mental health is going to hold them back. They don't feel like the support is going to be there for them as they transition out of the education system into what's next for them. And for those young people in work, around 36 % were worried or had ongoing struggles around their wellbeing. And 10 % of those young people in work were actively struggling with depression in those moments too. There's very little support for them from their employers. And there's very little support for employers to know what to do with the young people as they support them, recruit them and have them in their workplace as well.

19:17And then this stuff is sort of really big, it's sort of terrifyingly, mind-bogglingly big in terms of the scope because it's going from employment prospects, it's got a mental health issue, it's got huge issues to do with fairness and discrimination. This is mega. But if we go back to something we were talking about earlier, which is the growing confidence of those from an Asian background, the declining confidence of particularly young white men. And then we think about what are the institutions that can help. One of the things that governments have shied away from because it sort of falls into the sort of paternalism pot that politicians are worried about is family policy.

20:01One of the sort of obvious things to somebody like me from a Jewish background is family structure, family values matter. I recently wrote a book which goes into some of these sort of family issues with somebody I work with called Kishan Korya from an Indian background. And he talks very explicitly about the ambition that his family inculcated in him, the determination to do better at school. And yet we don't talk about how we help families to help their children to apply themselves in the right way. I mean, Steph and I have talked for years about the left behind, particularly white families who just have no hope, who just, you know, who've given up on themselves as parents and therefore they've given up on their children.

20:54what can governments realistically do to help those families help their own children families matter so we did a report a few years ago about the role of the family in social mobility your cultural economic capital is developed is transferred within the family and the conversations you can have and the conversations you're able to support i think it's also really important to note that family are doing more than they ever have before young people are relying on their parents over and above for mental health support for sometimes physical health support for financial support this year too so six percent more young people their primary source of support for often specialist issues whether it's substance abuse whether it's housing whether it's finance whether it is their physical health they are relying on their parents their parents are doing more i think what's really important is that remember those without that parental network and support but when we're that's sort of what i'm talking about i'm either talking about kids from explicitly what used to be called broken homes or just happen to have parents who don't care.

21:57And I don't always think it's about not caring but when you think about the pressures society, when you think about what jobs those parents might be in, the stresses and the structures around it too, I don't know that conversations in those moments can be about real good quality work. I grew up in a family where my dad was a builder and my mum didn't work until we were older because I'm one of six. And actually, when I think about work, there weren't conversations about what we were learning, how we were growing, what we can do, which are more afforded perhaps in other households across there too.

22:29So actually, in those moments, what conversations can those parents have? It's not because they don't care. And then they get given some of this information that's quite outdated too. So I think, for example, how we've tried to raise aspirations for young people, but without any tools, any conversations, and most importantly, no training or support routes or no plans for a curriculum that could raise young people's aspirations. So parents are relying on what they hear, oh, don't work in media because actually print's not a thing. And actually you look now, we look where we're here today and in terms of the jobs and opportunities, parents will be going, oh, I don't want my child to do that.

23:03Or, oh, apprenticeships are great, but not for my kid. Everyone should go to university because that's what we were told. So this is something I, Lauren, have battled with for many years in working with the children I do like do quite a bit of work with kids up in the northeast and particularly deprived areas and the things that I come up against the most are not a kind of lack of ambition from the kids themselves yes there's a sense that I have no idea how I'm going to get there and yes they feel like there aren't any you know they don't know all the jobs out there that the careers advice is limiting but often the biggest thing is the parents not because they don't care about their kids but a parent's lack of engagement in education because it did nothing for them so it's a sense of don't worry you know if you do rubbish at school that's fine look at me education's not going to give you the life skills you need qualifications don't matter because of their experience of it, not because of what they see in schools now.

24:12You know, for example, there's one school I work with and they struggle to get their parents in for like the report evening. And that's often because quite a few of those parents hated those moments themselves so much that they can't bear to go in and listen to a teacher tell them how they're doing again because it was so bad for them. Do you get a sense, Lauren, of that with these young people you're talking to? I think we see in particular, we see parental pressure for sure. And we see it particularly across minoritised ethnic groups too. Although that does tend to be this want for those young people to attend university, actually in terms of being able to afford their young person that they support a bigger opportunity than they had been able to access.

24:59I think we haven't heard as much around parents not wanting to go and not wanting to engage with the school environment. But I'm not sure that's something young people would perhaps recognise or tell us. Perhaps it would just be seen as a less important thing. I do, though, think that there is this real sense from young people that they just don't feel like they're being prepared for what's next for them to. You know, they sit through the skills, employability lessons, but actually as they sit and start to apply for work, as they sit and start to think about opportunities, they don't think employers want to hire young people at all.

25:35And they constantly ask us for more clarity from employers because for those that have progressed through school and got the GCSEs or the A-levels that they need, they just don't feel like they've got all of the answers and that they feel like when employers are putting those job descriptions, job adverts out there when they're getting to interview, they feel like they're still missing something. The conversation hasn't connected. It hasn't been able to make them ready for work. It hasn't been able to make employers want to hire them in any way. There's loads more of your research we want to get into, but let's have a quick break.

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27:15I think earlier you said that the cohort that you've spoken to this year actually specifically mentioned that they wanted more work experience while they were at school. I mean, obviously, I've got a vested interest in this just because, you know, I set up this charity speakers for schools and half of what we do is provide work experience to disadvantaged kids. It's slightly music to my ears that young people want this. But we often come across the problem that the schools themselves are so under pressure that creating the time, we've got hundreds of employers who are prepared to give work experience.