New report warns that UK young ‘are giving up on ever finding a job’

 
Unemployed teenagers London
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25 June 2013

Young people in the UK face being unemployed for more than two years before they reach the age of 30, new figures reveal today.

A study comparing education across the world shows that twenty-somethings in the UK can expect to be out of work for longer than those in Australia, Canada and much of Europe.

People who leave school with few qualifications and do not go on to further education are worst hit and many young people giving up on ever finding a job, according to the Education at a Glance study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It comes after latest Government figures showed there are more than one million young people in the UK classed as “NEET” — not in education, employment or training. Sir Peter Lampl, head of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “Our one million NEETs are a shaming testimony to our collective failure to get vocational education right and the OECD is right to highlight how poorly we compare with many other countries. We can’t afford the economic and social cost of such shocking dropout levels. If young people don’t develop their skills in work or education, they lose what they have learnt and become unemployable.”

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s deputy director for education and skills, said many young people have “given up” on finding work. He warned that the biggest challenge to the UK is helping youngsters who do not have decent qualifications and struggle to find a job.

The report found investing in education pays off in the long run. The likelihood of being out of work drops dramatically the more education a person has, with students who carry on studying after secondary school less likely to find themselves unemployed.

But there is still a large gender pay gap, with women in the UK earning no more than 69 per cent of what a man with the same qualifications earns.

The report also shows the UK now spends less on higher education than in 2005, although increasing tuition fees has not caused a dramatic drop in student numbers. But universities’ spokesman Wendy Piatt warned: “While we are experiencing cuts in public funding, other nations are pumping billions more into their universities to gain a competitive edge.”

The same report shows the UK’s teachers are among the youngest in the world. About 60 per cent of the nation’s primary teachers are under the age of 40 compared with an international average of 41 per cent. Almost a third of UK primary teachers are under 30, against an average of 13 per cent.

In Italy, 85 per cent of primary teachers are at least 40. In Germany the figure is 71 per cent and in Sweden 72 per cent.

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