Alan Milburn’s recent report on youth unemployment in the UK makes several worrying observations. A health secretary under Tony Blair’s government, Milburn was commissioned by the current government to lead an investigation into the soaring rates of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). The 220-page interim report – ‘Young people and work’ – was the result.
Milburn tells us that the number of NEETs has risen to more than one million – the highest level in 12 years – and that 60 per cent of all NEETs have never worked. This rise is costing the UK taxpayer an estimated £125 billion a year. These shocking figures are attributed to a mental-health epidemic among the youth and the changed world of work. Therefore, Milburn argues, the government needs to provide less onerous pathways into work.
The diagnosis and solution offered by Milburn are both wrong. Today, youth unemployment stands at between 12 and 16 per cent, depending on how you calibrate the figures. When I began work as a careers adviser in the early 1980s, in many parts of the UK, this figure was 50 per cent. Although today far more school leavers go on to higher education, making it difficult to draw direct comparisons, what is incontestable is that of the one million NEETs, over 600,000 are classed as ‘not actively looking for work’. In the 1980s, this category was unheard of, as the young had no choice but to take up the offer of a place on the Youth Opportunities Programme or Youth Training Scheme, or risk having their payment of between £14.30 and £20.55 a week (age dependent) withdrawn indefinitely.
The other significant change is that today’s NEETs are claiming that they cannot work because of one or a variety of mental illnesses. Milburn says that those who say they are NEET due to a ‘work-limiting health condition’ – such as anxiety, depression and stress – has risen by 70 per cent in a decade. Although he acknowledges that the welfare state pays disability benefits that are higher than the minimum wage, he resists the obvious conclusion that such an arrangement incentivises claiming to have disability at the expense of taking work.
Instead, Milburn says that there are not enough jobs for the young, and those that do exist are difficult to get or too demanding for this cohort. Essentially, it is taken for granted that this generation is less resilient and less competent than their predecessors. Milburn ignores the growing evidence that shows the increasing difficulty employers have in getting many young people to show any kind of commitment or work ethic at all.
Many of the 705,000 jobs currently being advertised are in areas that do not pay well, such as social care and retail. It is also reported that the applicants for these jobs are overwhelmingly from non-EU countries. It seems that those who were educated differently, in more traditional cultures, have a better work ethic than British youth.
Numerous employers have also testified to the low number of applicants or the high proportion of no-shows for interviews – not only for entry-level jobs, but also for apprenticeships and other training opportunities. Others insist that many young people lack initiative, drive and resilience, and too often cite mental-health concerns when faced with the demands of the workplace.
This is not entirely the fault of today’s youth. It is largely a result of how they have been brought up and the values of modern society. Education’s focus on pupils’ mental health and wellbeing is a root cause of our failing work ethic.
The current generation of 18- to 24-year-olds is the first full cohort to be educated wholly under the changes made to school education in Scotland through the Curriculum for Excellence and the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning in the rest of the UK. Under these changes, education has become much more about validating a pupil’s emotional outlook than giving them the knowledge, and with it the confidence, to go out into the world and make something of themselves.
These developments in the curriculum were underpinned by a cultural change in society where psychological fragility was celebrated. This ethos of frailty has become a central facet of how young people now understand themselves and the relationships they build with the wider world. In Scottish schools, a record 299,445 pupils are registered with Additional Support Needs, equating to 43 per cent of the total student population. In education, as in work, personal vulnerabilities have become the primary consideration.
The accommodation of vulnerability is reflected in the welfare state. The Personal Independence Payment in England and Adult Disability Payment in Scotland are awarded to claimants who can show they have lowered living or mobility functionality. Benefit penalties only really apply to those who are actively looking for work and receiving the Job Seekers Allowance, the value of which has dropped – in 2010 it was worth £98 per week, but now is only worth £91 per week in real terms. In short, claimants get more money and less hassle by not looking for a job. Working is actively disincentivised.
None of this is to deny that there is a significant lack of good quality jobs in the UK – red tape, regulations and high tax rates have certainly led to a lack of entry job opportunities for the young. Yet the question remains – even if there were good jobs, would today’s youth bother to do them?
That is the heart of the issue – and the question Alan Milburn’s report fails to answer.
Dr Linda Murdoch is a retired director of careers at the University of Glasgow.