Coming of age during a downturn can cause scarring – and it takes up to a decade to heal

a post by Stephen Clarke for the Resolution Foundation blog

Recessions are bad for people’s standard of living. And they’re particularly bad for young people. That’s the painful lesson we learnt after the 1980s recession where, for most of that decade, at least one in seven people under 30 were unemployed.

We know a lot about the unemployment scarring of the 1980s – from the rich academic literature, to UB40 or Shane Meadows’ This is England. But we’re only now beginning to learn what kind of long-term impacts the last big recession has had on young people.

While there’s never a good time to experience a recession, it’s particularly unlucky to come of age during one. What that bad luck means in terms of how much you earn, or what job you do, is something the Resolution Foundation has explored by looking at the ‘crisis cohort’ who left school, college or university between 2008 and 2011.

First, the good news. Although the recent downturn was far bigger than the 80s and early 90s recessions, it didn’t spur the big spike in youth unemployment that many feared. The recovery was quick, and Britain returned to record employment by early 2015. Instead, the pain of the recession was shared across more young people, through a deep pay squeeze. Now the biggest pay squeeze since the Napoleonic Wars isn’t pretty. But spreading the pain of a recession through everyone’s pay packets is certainly much fairer than concentrating the pain on those joining the dole queues, as occurred in the 1980s.

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The impacts of demographic change: Young workers, older workers and the consequences for education, skills and employment

an article by John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor (Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester) published in Education + Training volume 54 Issue 7 (2012)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the key themes in the area of the impact of demographic change on young workers and older workers in relation to education, skills and employment, as discussed in the papers included in this section. The authors have also drawn upon data from their project “From Young Workers to Older Workers” as a context for the papers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws out the main themes from the papers contained within this section and presents original data from interviews with 97 older workers who were interviewed at two points in time – labour market entry and labour market exit.
Findings
The selection of papers in this section is outlined, as well as offering some findings from the authors’ research on older workers.
Originality/value
The papers in this section, including this paper, offer an overview of some of the key debates in relation to the impact of demographic change on both young workers and older workers.

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Youth representatives’ opinions on recruiting and representing young workers: A twofold unsatisfied demand?

an article by Kurt Vandaele (European Trade Union Institute, Brussels) published in European Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 18 Number 3 (September 2012)

Abstract

Unionisation levels are far lower among young workers than for the workforce in general. How can trade unions become more responsive to their particular interests and needs?

Union confederations, even in countries with decentralised union structures, have the potential to take effective initiatives to facilitate and support new organising strategies targeted at young workers, for example by spreading knowledge, practical skills and vision of relevance for improving the representation and recruitment of young workers.

Yet the survey findings reported here show that youth representatives across Europe find their confederations’ responsiveness and commitment to organising to be inadequate. Their dissatisfaction confirms previous research findings concerning young workers and their unfulfilled desire for unionisation.

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