Dean Young, Liverpool South Socialist Party
There is a serious youth unemployment crisis emerging in Britain. On the surface an overall unemployment rate of 5.1%, whilst rising, seems relatively low. However scratch beneath the surface and it becomes clear that unemployment rates are significantly higher for young people under the age of 25.
This was acknowledged by the Labour government when Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged Labour will “abolish long term youth unemployment”, at the September 2025 Labour Party conference. Fat chance of that!
Stories of graduates leaving 18+ years of education, having done everything by the book, yet not being able to find secure work (or indeed any work at all!) are commonplace. According to government reports released in November 2025, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds is 15.9% – 729,000 people.
To put that into perspective, the number is considerably larger than the membership of the Labour Party during its peak with Jeremy Corbyn as leader. The 15% figure is also significantly larger than the overall unemployment figure of 5.1%. Youth unemployment is up 103,000 on the year before. Almost a million (946,000) are ‘NEET’ – meaning not in employment, education or training – with 500,000 16 to 24-year-olds actively searching for work and not able to get it, according to a TUC report (September 2025).
As a 22-year-old recent graduate having recently finished a Masters degree, I too very much understand the emerging crisis from personal experience. Application after application, an obscene average of at times hundreds of applicants for just one entry-level role. Finally getting an interview and realising you are competing with other workers with at times decades of experience who are being forced to look for entry-level work themselves!
This does not suggest a healthy economy and labour market. The diagnosis is that British capitalism is deeply sick, and incapable of providing for the working-class majority. If you get an interview, after much stress, you then often realise that is not the final hurdle. There’s another hoop you need to jump through after that. It is frustrating, demoralising and, frankly, radicalising.
If you are fortunate enough to get a job there’s no guarantee it is a secure job. Zero-hour contracts run rife. People are forced to work multiple jobs just to get by. Another pledge Labour promised was to deliver a so-called ‘new deal for workers’. That has been repeatedly watered down after ‘consultations with business’, with as yet no ban on zero-hour contracts, and no full workers’ rights from day one.
With insecure working emerges a different crisis to unemployment, underemployment. Universal Credit is used by workers to top up poverty wages from bosses. 327,000 16 to 24-year-olds claimed Universal Credit in December 2025 (up 31,200 from December 2024). Over 700,000 university graduates are now out of work and claiming benefits, according to the Centre for Social Justice.
This bleakness undoubtedly will have, and is already having, the effect of making young people look to more radical ideas. If you can’t get a job, are saddled with tens of thousands worth of student debt for life and dealing with zero-hour contract exploitation, it is inevitable you will be angry! Blairite former Home Secretary David Blunkett warned in the Guardian newspaper in September 2025 of the threat of a “lost generation”. The greatest threat to capitalist politicians like Blunkett is this new generation of young people will be lost for capitalism and more open to socialist ideas.
The Labour government has only been in office for less than two years and is already hated. When asked to rank the most important issues to them, young people’s (16-29) top three answers were: cost of living, health care and housing affordability. The top three contributors to anxiety: financial worries, work pressure, job insecurity and unemployment. (John Smith Centre). Keir Starmer’s Labour government is not only failing to address these issues – the problems are getting worse under it!
A significant number of the 800,000 who initially signed up to support Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party in summer 2025 will have been young people enthused by a left-wing alternative to Starmer’s Labour. Likewise, big sections of young people will be enthused by new Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s left-wing rhetoric.
The majority of young people angry and wanting change, workers and students, have not joined the Greens or Your Party. Most are watching on from the sidelines waiting to see what party, if any, is capable of fighting for them. Young workers and students desperately need a mass workers’ party, with trade unions’ collective power at its heart, to fight against poverty wages, unemployment and underemployment. As does the working class as a whole.
The trade unions in Britain organise over 6 million workers, of all ages and from all backgrounds. They should be to the fore in the fight against rising youth unemployment. The Socialist Party calls for a trade union struggle for a £15-an-hour minimum wage with no age exemptions, as a step towards a real living wage; for the abolition of zero-hour contracts; and for a mass public jobs creation programme.
The Labour government has announced its Youth Guarantee, including a promise of six months’, government-funded, paid work for 18 to 21-year-olds who have spent over 18 months on Universal Credit. This will be available to a tiny minority of those facing under- and unemployment. There are no details on what pay and conditions these workers will have guaranteed, and there is no promise of a job at the end of it.
A previous Tory government workfare scheme forced people in receipt of Job Seekers’ Allowance to work for their benefits or face sanctions. Workfare was used as free labour by big-business employers as well as to undercut the pay and job security of their waged workers. Socialist Party members as part of the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign fought against this.
Trade unions should be demanding that any government-funded scheme ensures trade union conditions and rates of pay, as well as a permanent job guarantee at the end.
Rather than the government handing over cash to big business, unions should be demanding mass investment in public works to meet need. For example, to develop green technology and to address the huge shortage of affordable housing.
In Liverpool in the 1980s, the city council’s Labour administration was led by Militant, the Socialist Party’s predecessor. The council implemented an urban regeneration programme that created unionised jobs, good-quality apprenticeships with a job guaranteed at completion. The council built thousands of council homes as well as parks and community centres. By mobilising mass support in the city, including through the trade unions, millions of pounds was won from Margaret Thatcher’s government in Westminster.
There is nothing to stop councils today taking the same approach. The three main trade unions representing council workers have policies calling for councils to set no-cuts budgets.
The Greens, for example, have over 800 councillors and are part of administrations in over 40 local authorities. Unfortunately so far, those councils have followed the logic of the capitalist establishment and carried out austerity cuts. Zack Polanski should instruct those Green councillors to take a fighting, anti-austerity position.
In Liverpool and elsewhere around the country, Socialist Party members are playing a role helping to organise people’s budget meetings. Events to draw up council budgets based on need, those should include measures to properly tackle the youth unemployment crisis. In the 1980s, Liverpool won millions from Thatcher the ‘Iron Lady’; imagine what would be won from multiple councils demanding money from ‘tin man’ Starmer!
In May’s elections, we are fighting for the widest possible stand of candidates on that anti-austerity basis, demanding that the super-rich are made to pay for their own crisis. We call on the trade unions to lead the process of fighting for a new party of the working class, and for it to fight for socialist change.
The crisis of youth unemployment is not unique to British capitalism. Youth unemployment levels across Europe include: Spain (25%), France (19%), Sweden (24%), Greece and Italy (both 21%). This displays clearly a failure of the capitalist system to offer any sort of future for young people internationally. That is what is behind the political polarisation and radicalisation of young people around the world. It underlines the need to fight for socialism – a system based on public ownership and working-class democratic control, with production planned to meet need not profit – in Britain and internationally.
The Socialist Party says:
- Young workers organise! – join a trade union and fight for workers’ rights
- End zero-hour contracts – guaranteed hours for all and flexibility on the workers’ terms not the bosses’
- Build a trade union struggle for a minimum wage of £15 an hour, with no exemptions, as a step towards a real living wage
- All apprenticeships must be with trade union-agreed pay, terms and conditions, and a guaranteed job on completion
- Start a mass programme of socially useful and environmentally sustainable public works, on trade union conditions
- Demand councils set no-cuts, needs-based budgets – make the super-rich pay
- Unions must build a new mass workers’ party to fight on our side against the bosses
- For a socialist planned economy based on public ownership and working class control and management, to meet need
- Fight for socialist change in Britain and internationally
Jack: ‘this isn’t just a personal struggle’
After leaving university as a graduate, I expected that getting work would be difficult, but I didn’t realise how discouraging and competitive the process could feel in reality. I applied for lots of roles and waited for responses, but most applications didn’t lead anywhere. In many cases I didn’t even receive a rejection, just silence. Eventually, the first job that actually replied to me and invited me in was a kitchen porter role. They offered me a trial shift, and because I needed income and didn’t want to keep waiting, I took it.
While I was grateful to have work, I still wanted to find something that felt more suited to me as a graduate, or at least something that used more of my skills. When I began looking for other opportunities, I quickly noticed that so many roles required at least a year of experience, even for entry-level positions. This left me feeling stuck, it is hard to gain experience when you aren’t being given a chance to start in the first place!
After a while, I widened my search and started applying for more standard retail and customer service jobs, thinking that would be easier. However, even those roles were extremely competitive. I attended an interview for a temporary job where the recruiter said she was interviewing people all week just to fill a one-month contract, which made it clear how many applicants were fighting for very limited work.
The most frustrating part has been the lack of communication. Even after interviews, I’ve often had no follow-up at all. Seeing friends my age go through the same thing, applying for months and receiving only rejections, has made me realise this isn’t just a personal struggle, but a wider issue affecting many people.
Ellie: ‘lack of support and not enough jobs’
As a care leaver, I received Universal Credit immediately on turning 18. After passing my A-levels, I did not get much support looking for jobs or applying to university.
After a gap year, eight months of a university course and having to drop out due to a lack of support, I was forced to move house six times in two years, and twice to a new area. I never knew where I would end up next.
I have tried to get help from ‘support workers’ and job centre work coaches. One charity helped me write a CV using AI, which wasn’t even to an acceptable level!
I’m looking for work, despite all the hurdles. But there is not a lot in general, and there is not a lot I could apply for. I applied to two bookshops, one gave me an interview, the other turned me down as I hadn’t worked in one before. For now, I have my eye on Waterstones which hires baristas for one month at a time.
