Alan Milburn

But yes, so I hear that a lot.

And obviously, look, if you're an employer, and I am and have been an employer, every time you take on a young person, the truth is it's always a risk because they're unproven, aren't they?

It's not like you're taking on somebody a bit older and they've got a track record and a CV and got a reference.

So what we've got to do is make sure that the risks are minimised and the incentives are maximised for employers.

So obviously we're looking at all of those issues in the round.

And we're looking at what employers could be doing more to make it easier for young people to come into the workplace.

The really great thing I'm finding every conversation I'm in with every employer, you know, particularly when you're talking to employees in a local community as part of a local area.

They want to do something about it.

And they want to do something not just because, honestly, because it's a bit of like do-gooding or ESG or whatever it is.

They want to do it because they themselves very often are struggling to recruit skilled labour.

And now that you've got levels of migration falling and a lot of employers have been overly reliant, arguably, on immigrant labour...

That's coming down.

In fact, the net level of migration is probably going to be zero or below, according to the OBR, within the next year, maybe even in this calendar year.

Employers can't be on easy street anymore.

And just assuming that migrant labor is the answer.

So they're going to have to find a different source of labor.

And that is, you know, there's a big, here you have a million young people.

Hold on a minute.

Why are we enabling them into the workplace?

That's obviously a job for government as well, but it's also a job for employers to think about.