Unemployment among the young on the rise – according to new figures

The worklessness rate within the entire UK, including all age groups, has a risen to 4.3%. 

The highest increase within the population involved 16-24-year-olds, as the estimate for the number of young people not in employment, education or training, also known as NEETs, has risen to 872,000 from 798,000 in one year, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). 

Winchester resident Stephen Teagle is 20 years old and is currently out of work; since he dropped out of university last year, he is yet to start searching for a job. 

“After dropping out of uni, I had planned to travel. And due to the restrictive nature of having a job and travelling, I decided not to get one; having a job currently would just negatively impact my plans,” he said. 

Along with about 540,000 other young people in the UK, Stephen would be labelled as an economically inactive person, which is someone who is not actively looking for training or employment. 

However, Stephen plans to change this in the near future: “After New Year’s, if I’m not going to go travelling again, then I’ll probably try looking for a job in a coffee shop or something.”

The government has labelled these high levels of youth worklessness as “unacceptable” and is planning to introduce a Youth Guarantee as part of their new welfare system to combat this issue. 

This new scheme would offer young people aged 18-21 the opportunity to be trained in order to aid them into work. 

Stephen believes that this guarantee could be good for the general majority, but worries some people may fall through the cracks of the system. 

“I really like the encouragement to push people into work. For a lot of people, it’ll help financially and boost their self-esteem.

“However, I think the way that they’re doing it and with certain people’s circumstances, it will just potentially cause more issue. 

“If you try to force small groups, such as people with disabilities or mental health issues, into things that they can’t do or will negatively impact them, then that is purely the wrong way to do it.”

The scheme will be offered to those currently out of employment, but if they choose to reject the offer, then they could face having their benefits cut, according to work and pensions minister Liz Kendall. 

Stepehen feels that this added pressure onto those struggling mentally will make their situation even harder. 

“It’s gonna make it 100% worse… for a couple years I didn’t work because of my depression. If it were now, and I was on benefits, and the government was like ‘get a job or we’ll cut it’, that’s gonna make me spiral.”