EXCLUSIVE: Chris Grayling, Minister for Employment, speaks to Bad Luck Generation

By Victoria Maigrot

Sympathetic to our cause, Chris Grayling, minister for employment, agreed to an exclusive interview with Bad Luck Generation.

“Youth unemployment is certainly an area of big concern,” Mr Grayling began, “I think that it is a challenge for a core of that group. Out of those that sign onto job seekers allowance, the majority are off benefits again in the next few months. However, there is a core of longer term unemployed young members of the population.”

“But the government is taking active measures to reverse the trend,” he was unsurprisingly keen to stress.

With the government unveiling a £1bn package aimed at tackling youth unemployment last November, set to commence this April, Mr Grayling explained what this initiative will mean to those that need it the most.

“We are offering through our work experience program 400,000 work and training placements. There is a real focus on those that have been out of work for a short period of time, on trying to get them into an employer organisation and get them to show what they can potentially do to an employer and get some experience in the workplace,” he explained.

When questioned about the potential negative effects of the minimum wage at pricing the young out of the labour market Mr Grayling recognised that this was an issue.

“We are certainly looking very carefully at the recommendations given by the Low Pay Commission. We have not come to a conclusion yet over the issue but it is certainly something that we are going to give consideration to,” he said, before quickly moving onto another topic.

Mr Graying was also keen to argue that youth unemployment figures are not as high as the media likes to report.

“The overall headline figures are considerably low because out of the figure currently cited, around 270,000 are students in full time education looking for a part time job. They are not truly unemployed in the conventional sense. But the reality for the rest is that unemployment is a big challenge,” he said.

“For those struggling for a longer period we have devised the work program. This provides much more intensive back to work training to try and get them back into employment.”

This includes a £50million program aimed at NEETs; those not in employment, education or training.

But even if unemployment figures are reported using metrics that over exaggerate the quota of youth people who are out of work, the government cannot deny recent increases in youth unemployment Bad Luck Generation probed.

“The way that the ILO calculates unemployment figures is quarter to quarter; this means that if the UK has a particularly bad month then this then has a knock on effect on the next two sets of data. So I’m not surprised that the figures are currently bad. We are in a period of drop off in growth. This is going to have a knock on effect on employment figures at large,” answered Mr Grayling.

“We have also seen a big loss in confidence in the market because of the eurozone crisis. Although we are not part of the eurozone, it is obviously going to have an effect here. We are not immune to it,” he added.

But youth unemployment was an issue well before the Eurozone crisis we reminded the minister.

“Yes that is a valid point,” said Mr Grayling, “But it is certainly not making things easier,” he concluded.

What’s the minimum wage rate?

By Maria Tadeo

The impact of the on-going economic slowdown has taken its toll on young workers who continue to be the hardest hit by the recession, as Britain’s youth unemployment hits the one million milestone.

Most recently the rising minimum wage rate has also sparked debate regarding its effect on youth unemployment, as critics believe it is pricing young adults out of work as firms become increasingly reluctant to recruit new staff that is both inexperienced and expensive.

The Low Pay Commission chief economist Tim Butcher recently said the commission is set to investigate the impact on minimum wage on youth unemployment amid fears that business can no longer afford to employ younger workers.

The commission’s report for UK ministers argued that “recent research has found evidence that in difficult economic circumstances the level of the minimum wage may have had an impact on the employment of young people.”

The rate for minimum wage increased in October, currently standing at £6.08 an hour for adults aged over 21, up by 15p, £4.98 an hour for 18-20 years old, up by 6p, £3.68 an hour for 16-17 years old, up by 4p, and £2.60 for apprentices, up by 10p.

Business secretary Vince Cable said the new rates “are appropriate, reflecting the current economic uncertainty while at the same time protecting the UK’s lowest-paid workers. More than 890,000 of Britain’s lowest-paid workers will gain from these changes.”

Meet Harry, a young graduate trying to find employment

By Victoria Maigrot

Meet Harry; he is a Classics graduate from Edinburgh University, with a 2.1 MA degree. However, his search for employment has not been going so well. Harry spoke to Bad Luck Generation and explained why he thought he was having problems securing a job.

“I understand that Classics is not the most relatable of degrees,” he said, “Especially since I want a job in accounting. But I’ve passed all the numeracy tests set at the assessment days I’ve managed to get through, there just seems to be too much competition. ”

“Most accountancy firms are not looking for new hires at the moment, the job market has completely seized up. Everyone is scared at the moment, so no one is moving jobs. This means that there are no jobs for me, other than graduate programs that I have to wait to apply for. It’s so frustrating.

“I want to go into accounting because even though I studied classics, I like working with numbers. This obviously makes my options limited, since a lot of redundancies are being made throughout the City of London. To be honest, I feel like I should be getting employed, I have a good degree from a good university but I am finding it as hard as everyone else,” he concluded.

Harry went on to explain how it might help if he was a girl. “Out of all the candidates that get called to interview, about 1 out of 5 are girls, I’d say that that puts the odds in their favour. If I was a girl I’d be employed right now. Maybe I should go to my next interview in a skirt,” he said laughing.

I’m lovin’ it: McDonald’s creates 2,500 jobs

By Maria Tadeo

Today news has emerged that US fast-food giant McDonald‘s is set to create new 2,500 jobs aimed at young people in more than 1,200 restaurants across Britain and Ireland.

McDonald’s, one of the most notorious sponsors of the London Olympics, said the more than half of the new jobs will be allocated to people under 25 in a bid to tackle the UK’s record high youth unemployment.

The move follows the recent announcement made by Wallmart-owned Asda supermarkets to invest £500m in 25 new store openings that will create an additional 5,000 new jobs by the end of 2012.

Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the news saying McDonald’s has a “great record in investing in the U.K. and providing excellent training, apprenticeships and opportunities.”

McDonald’s new job scheme is set to increase the company’s total UK workforce to 90,000 employees, predominantly based in England.

The Bad Luck Generation

By Maria Tadeo

UK youth unemployment rose to one million people, the most dramatic jobless rate increase in nearly 15 years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

One in five young adults are now out of work and official figures show there were 1.02 million unemployed aged 16 to 24-year-olds between July and September 2011. The number of students also fell by 46,000 to 2.2m in September 2011.

A preoccupying set of figures that has sparked mounting concern for Britain’s so-called “lost generation”, a term now used to describe a new generation of jobless young British professionals with no occupation or no income.

Efforts to create new jobs in the private sector aimed at younger workers must be invigorated, as well as the funding of new learning schemes and vocational training courses, to prevent a new generation from becoming marginalised from the labour market.

According to figures released by the Prince’s Trust youth charity, the cost of youth unemployment and inactivity is approximately £20 million per week in job seeker’s allowance, and the productivity loss to the UK economy is estimated at £10m per day.

Most worryingly, the lack of work opportunities has been increasingly linked to rising crime levels for young people, already under the spotlight following the London riots, where a large majority of those who took part in the looting classified as neets- not in education, work or training.

Britain must act now.