Young people face a jobless future – unless ministers learn from the past | Polly Toynbee
The government needs to ape Labour’s successful post-crash employment schemes and use what works to avert this crisis Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage This summer, new cohorts of young people will tumble out of their closed-down schools and colleges into a shut-down world of no work. Some half a million will be leaving university, as many more may be leaving school or ending training and further education to emerge into nothingness. If they have lost their entire summer term, they will have had precious little careers advice, most of which was an early victim of austerity cuts anyway. The wealth of research from previous recessions shows that a long spell of early unemployment risks people being scarred for life. Before the virus struck, they might have found jobs that didn’t match their qualifications in pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes – almost all are now closed. On the dole they will join millions of others, many of them young, along with the 1.4...
