Younger and older workers face challenges in the jobs market, says UK charity
Younger and older workers in the UK face significant disadvantages in the labor market, according to a new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
The report finds that both unemployment and underemployment (including unused skills and too few hours) are widespread among older and younger workers, compared to those aged 26–55.
It also finds that the position of younger workers has “worsened significantly” in recent years, especially for the least qualified. But it finds no evidence that younger people are being crowded out of the jobs market by the growing number of older people in work.
The report concludes that: “Policy interventions to address these issues need to focus on those with low qualifications, and on improving the quality of flexible work and the quality and relevance of training and qualifications, in order to enable the youngest and oldest in the labour market (and some women with childcare responsibilities in mid-life) to escape from a cycle of low-status, temporary and low-skilled work.”
The JRF analysed UK Labour Force Survey Data gathered over a 20-year period, comparing the experiences of three cohorts at the same age in 1993, 2003, and 2013. The report argues that over this period, a person’s age is shown to be a more important determinant of their employment prospects than the generation they were born into.
René Böheim has written for IZA World of Labor about the effects that growing number of older people in the workforce have on the employment prospects of younger people. He argues that there is no evidence that later retirement produces higher youth unemployment, and that in fact “increasing effective retirement ages and policies to foster employment of older workers are likely to support the employment of both older and younger workers.”
Read the JRF report here.
Related articles:
The effect of early retirement schemes on youth employment by René Böheim
Youth bulges and youth unemployment by David Lam
Late-life work and well-being by Carol Graham