employers / partners

The Labour Market and Young People

More 16 year olds than ever before choosing to stay on in education beyond the statutory school leaving age.

Plus the labour market has changed for young people – how?

There are fewer full-time jobs available requiring little or no skills. For more information about the labour market in Northumberland follow this link: http://www.northumberlandinfonet.org.uk/

Some employers can get hung up on employing young people with 5 A-C grades at GCSE when the majority of young job seekers at this age will have lower GCSE grades. Qualities and skills such as a practical aptitude, enthusiasm and reliability are just as important.

There’s a lot of negative press around about young people. Growing up has never been easy and some young people have huge hurdles to overcome. Sometimes they need a lot of understanding to settle in to work and fulfil their potential as an employee.

There are more opportunities than ever to earn and learn – that is taking qualifications, usually NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) whilst working. Lots of young people who have not enjoyed learning at school are very motivated by NVQs which are practical and evidence the achievements they have made in working life.

The rate of change in the labour market is rapid and young people will change careers several times in their (likely to be long) working life. This means that skills and qualifications are ever more crucial in helping them to move around from job to job.

Travelling to and from work is still a big issue in Northumberland for lots of young people who would love to apply for some vacancies but cannot access transport to allow them to start on time.