Press Story

Today’s job figures show a continued improvement in the UK’s employment rate, with unemployment at its lowest level in almost a decade. However the unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds is still consistently higher than that for older age groups.

In London in particular, young people who are looking for work are still less likely to be successful than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. 18.4% of Londoners aged 16-24 who are in the labour market are unable to find work, compared to a UK average of 15.2% .

Young people studying in London are also less likely to have had experience of paid work on leaving education. Only 22% of young people between 16-24 in full time education are also working, compared to 30% of 16-24-year-olds in the rest of the UK. This is part of a wider national trend: in 2007, 1 in 3 young people in education were also working, but by 2011 this had fallen to 1 in 4. Young people in London face a tougher challenge to accumulate experience of paid work because of the capital’s highly competitive job market.

Clare McNeil, Associate Director for Work and Families at IPPR said:

"While the continued rise in employment is good news, it continues to be harder for young people to find work than any other age group. This is particularly true for young people in London, where fewer and fewer young people are leaving education with any experience of paid work on their CV.

"Evidence suggests young people with any kind of work experience are more likely to find work than those with none. So as well as better vocational education and training, and careers advice in schools, we must open up more opportunities for paid work while studying such as internships if we are to prepare more young people for the job market."

Today’s job figures showed that for September to November 2015, for people aged from 16 to 24, there were:

3.96 million people in work (including 961,000 full-time students with part-time jobs)
628,000 unemployed people (including 212,000 full-time students looking for part-time work)
2.64 million economically inactive people, most of whom (2.03 million) were full-time students

ENDS

Contacts

Sofie Jenkinson, 07981023031, s.jenkinson@ippr.org
Lester Holloway, 07585 772 633, l.holloway@ippr.org