Parents are starting to panic about generation jobless
As well as cutting back on hiring because of tax rises introduced in the October Budget, businesses have warned that an incoming package of new employment rights will discourage them from bringing in inexperienced staff.
The timing is bad, given that there are almost a million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training. Around 600,000 are out of work or learning for more than a year and around 300,000 for more than two years, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with mental ill health increasingly cited as a reason.
It's a vicious cycle. As young people struggle to gain experience, bosses are growing increasingly wary of them.
A Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) poll in December found that over half of UK employers don't think that young people are well-prepared for the world of work, with almost two thirds thinking that they lack important social skills, and 71pc thinking they don't always know how to behave in the workplace.
CIPD researchers blamed much of this on a sharp decline in opportunities. Considered difficult to manage and naive, tired managers who have to cut back on hiring and can't face the challenge are opting to hire more experienced, safer bets instead.
Teachers have also noticed major shifts in attitude since Covid, with children missing 11.5 million days of school in the autumn term of 2023 – 67pc more than the 6.8 million days lost in the same period before Covid hit in 2019, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The consequences are enormous. More inactivity among the young means more violence, more mental health problems, a plunge in productivity and, therefore, economic growth.
Generation Covid might still be skipping school or hiding in their bedrooms, but what they really want is to be seen.
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