This summer Youth Employment UK began work on our Manifesto for Youth Employment, bringing together our youth network, a range of partners and research to provide a comprehensive manifesto for real change. Download load the full version here.
These recommendations were presented to the main political parties and to all MP’s ahead of the general election announcement.
For the UK to prosper, it is imperative that the next government takes ambitious steps to ensure that young people can grow up with the support they need to fulfil their potential. We must have a bold ambition to become a country that is great to grow up in, where young people feel valued, included and secure in their futures. We need a government that believes it is their responsibility to make this a reality for all young people.
Summary of key recommendations:
- Embed Youth Voice in policy decision-making
- Ensure schools and colleges meet the needs of all pupils to enable successful transitions post education
- Make apprenticeships work for all young people
- Ensure adequate and consistent support for vulnerable young people who become NEET or are identified as “at risk” of becoming NEET
- Support employers to increase the quality of work and to reduce barriers which currently prevent young people from gaining employment
- Support mental health services that are vital to the wellbeing of young people
- Improve public transport infrastructure services across the UK
- Recognise the vital, long-term role youth services play in promoting social mobility and supporting a young person’s personal, social and educational development
“Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed than any other age group and those young people with disadvantage characteristics are even more vulnerable. There are currently 792,000 young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) and it is simply not good enough. We have not come far enough since the peek levels of 2011 to ensure that government policy supports the young people of this country. We need the next government to take bold action and to believe as we do that all young people have the right to fulfil their potential and that government should be leading by example and be unapologetic for its ambition to secure a positive future for the next generation. Our manifesto has some ambitious asks and we will be working hard with our network of young people and partners to support the new government to take real action”
Laura-Jane Rawlings CEO, Youth Employment UK
Our Manifesto for Youth Employment has brought together an extensive range of reports and research from our own archives and that of partners and other expert organisations, looking in detail at the barriers young people have to employment as told by them in our Youth Voice Census 2019.
A full copy of the Manifesto for Youth Employment can be downloaded Youth Employment UK Manifesto_ full version.
