Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Chapter 2: What is the risk of a lost generation of young people in the UK?
We are at risk of a lost generation.
Employers aren't taking people on as much as they used to. And young people who lack experience, because they're by their definition at the start of their careers, are often the first to bear the brunt of that. The life chances of people are really being eroded at the moment. So this is more.
than an economic crisis. It's a moral one.
The government has been warned of a lost generation of young people with more than a million out of work or education. From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Richard Partington, our senior economics correspondent is here.
Richard, you've been covering this major long awaited report from former Labour Minister Alan Milburn this morning about the scale of the problem of the number of young people out of employment, but also out of any form of education or training. How big is the scale of the problem?
It's really big and it's incredibly worrying what it says about the position that the country is in and the prospects for the next generation. So the report this morning from Alan Milburn, who was health secretary in Tony Blair's new Labour cabinet, spells out a pretty stark issue. We have over a million young people dying. age 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training.
This horrible word NEET is the acronym. But I mean, it's something that I don't think people like to use as a term, but it encapsulates something really quite big and profound. And that's that the life chances of people are really being eroded at the moment. There's a multitude of reasons why the more and more young people are out of work.
It's just worth saying, I think, that this is quite a specifically UK problem, isn't it? When you compare with sort of similar economies in Europe, that the problem is far worse here than it is elsewhere.
It's substantially worse here and it's been getting worse as well, which is one of the most troubling parts.
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Chapter 3: How significant is the unemployment issue for young people?
And also that this is the COVID generation, the post-COVID generation, who had those very, very challenging years of university education or school education on screens. Alan Milburn described this as the bedroom generation.
Absolutely. And also, if you think about AI and the way that's disrupting the jobs market, That is particularly taking away employment opportunities in the entry level positions that young people would rely on. Also in a cost of living crisis where people haven't got as much money to go out and spend as they might normally do, such as in the pub or a restaurant meal at the end of the week.
The hospitality sector, retail sector, again, places where young people would typically get their first start or maybe have a Saturday job are the places where employment opportunities are falling most.
Yeah. And what another striking thing from Milburn's report was that 84 percent of the young people that he spoke to said that they wanted to work. So that sort of runs against this idea that this is kind of. generation of Gen Z snowflakes who were too busy making TikToks to go to work. That feels untrue.
One of the things that can perhaps feed into that stereotype is the rising number of young people claiming welfare for their mental health, which is sharply on the rise. How did Milburn diagnose that problem?
He diagnosed the problem as the welfare system isn't geared up to encourage people to work. It's a really delicate and tricky argument for a former Labour cabinet minister to get into with a Labour government that has a patchy record of addressing issues around benefits.
We saw the big welfare rebellion by backbenchers last year, really the start of undermining Keir Starmer's authority as we see this happening. Today, I would take a plucky prime minister to take on this issue again.
But what Milburn says is that for young people who don't have job support, the consequence is going to be that they're going to be on benefits and that we're spending more on benefits, substantially more on benefits than on employment support, work coaches. On average, young people who are neat with health issues only get around a minute per week of employment support.
The government spends for every £25 spent on benefits, just £1 on employment support. So Milburn's argument is that benefits bill, you know, there is a concern about the cost of it. But to get it down, he says you need to support people to find a job. And I think that's going to be the challenge that the government has to face to deal with.
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