Summary
Many young school leavers have struggled to find work for years. Now the economic crisis has made things worse. Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies investigates the roots of the problem. He discusses the challenge faced by those - particularly boys - who dislike classroom learning, and the often chaotic transition from school to the world beyond. And he hears about the key importance of work experience at the earliest stage to enable young people to acquire the skills and attitudes employers want. But how much can be changed as employers hold onto their older workers during the downturn, leaving youngsters even further behind?
Interviewees include the youth unemployment and vocational education specialists Alison Wolf and Paul Gregg, employers and specialist trainers in Wiltshire, and the new Scottish minister for youth employment.
Producer: Chris Bowlby.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
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| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thank you for downloading this podcast from the BBC. |
| 0:38.9 | For more information, please go to the BBC website. |
| 0:42.3 | This is Analysis. Our Britain's young unemployed |
| 0:45.2 | school levers, a group our education and work policies have left behind. Paul |
| 0:50.2 | Johnson investigates the roots and possible solutions of an urgent problem in wasted youth. |
| 0:57.0 | Say youth unemployment to the average Radio 4 listener, and they may well think of this year's crop of graduates struggling to find jobs. |
| 1:04.0 | But in comparison to some young people, they're the lucky ones. |
| 1:08.0 | Graduate unemployment is a very temporary phenomenon. |
| 1:10.0 | There's a recession. |
| 1:11.0 | Some of them will take longer to find work but graduates will be |
| 1:14.0 | all right in the end. It's those who leave school at 16 who don't have any obvious skills whose long-term |
| 1:20.1 | job trajectories are very bad. |
| 1:22.3 | Economist Tim Loinig, all the political emphasis on education, education, |
| 1:27.0 | of the last couple of decades has undoubtedly put many in a better position to compete for jobs at the higher end of the labour market, |
| 1:35.8 | but well before the current downturn hit, something else was becoming clear. |
... |
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