Prior to the onset of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis, there were already 760,000 young people not in education or employment in the UK. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has recently shown that young people are 2.5 times more likely to be working in the sectors most affected by the pandemic and there are fears that its economic impact will lead to an additional 640,000 unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds this year. Furthermore, more than one-in-three in this age group are earning less than before the outbreak, around a quarter of them have been furloughed and one-in-seven young people
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Prior to the onset of the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis, there were already 760,000 young people not in education or employment in the UK. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has recently shown that young people are 2.5 times more likely to be working in the sectors most affected by the pandemic and there are fears that its economic impact will lead to an additional 640,000 unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds this year. Furthermore, more than one-in-three in this age group are earning less than before the outbreak, around a quarter of them have been furloughed and one-in-seven young people are now claiming unemployment benefits. The government has made a huge commitment to employers and their staff by creating the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and extending it until October. However, further action will be needed to protect jobs and opportunities for young people so that, as redundancies are made, young people are still able to move forward in their careers.
The [Youth Employment Group] YEG recommends that clear objectives are set to monitor progress in supporting young people during the economic crisis and beyond, including: (1) The seasonally adjusted 18-24 'Not in Education, Employment or Training' (NEET) rate (using the Labour Force Survey measure) should return to below prepandemic level in every nation of the UK by October 2021; and (2) Nobody aged 18-24 should spend more than six months unemployed before accessing a meaningful education or employment opportunity. The recommendations in this paper are intended to help the government, the YEG and all other youth employment stakeholders achieve such objectives together.
Excerpt from publication.
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