Unemployed young people must ‘step up’, chancellor says
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-01-29/unemployed-young-people-must-step-up-chancellor-says
by JayR_97
Unemployed young people must ‘step up’, chancellor says
https://www.itv.com/news/2025-01-29/unemployed-young-people-must-step-up-chancellor-says
by JayR_97
28 comments
Unless you repair the damage caused by successive governments to the prospects of the young, why should they? I’m not in that demographic, and haven’t been for decades, but if I was young today I’d be asking Rachel Reeves how society is “stepping up” for me.
Perhaps make futures for young people affordable and optimistic and worth fighting for.
Right now all Gen Z have to look forward to, in the eyes of many, is: runaway climate change, inability to afford their own home or start a family, constant job rejections despite being qualified, the constant possibility of nuclear war with Russia, and unregulated AI.
Step up to what? Entry-level positions require 2-3 years of experience. Wages are shit, whilst profits are up. Even with full-time employment, they can’t afford rent. She needs to either step down or pull her head out of her ass. Preferably both.
What a refreshing change of pace. Turns out the young need to do more. Do you think we’ll ever see a headline like ‘time to make some sacrifices for the young, you pampered old bastards?’
I did not have thatcherite bootstrapping on my Labour 2025 bingo card, but here we are.
Maybe if companies pulled there weight too and started treating people better it would give people an incentive to work. But Alas, we do not live in a perfect world
Give them a reason to step up, that actually benefits them.
Sounds much like the Thatcherism quote of get on your bike.
The number of job vacancies in the UK has been falling since 2022 and now stands at around 800,000 with many more jobs already announced to go this year. Add to this, more businesses are openly saying that they are reducing the number of people they will hire this year.
The admin clerk is the one who needs to step up or at least shut up.
What a sick fucking joke. All these politicians need to fuck off. God knows i wont be voting for this set of bastards again next election. Which leaves me with no one to vote for.
Man I cannot believe I voted for these cunts, I’m officially politically homeless now, zero chance I vote for these Tory Lite wannabes ever again. Yet again young people are going to pay for the damage and sins caused by the older generations.
Yes they must step up.
You young folks need to become slaves where you do a job all your life that will not be able to get you a house or provide for a wife and kids. We need slaves so you can’t stop working get on with it and stop complaining
Sarcasm by the way before the downvotes come in
Its hard to step up when:
1) many young people have been sold a lie that you need to do a degree immediately after college to get to get on in life. So most are entering the workforce already £30k in debt
2) most entry level jobs often need 1-3 years experience and don’t pay enough to live with anything close to dignity in places like London.
3) outside of London there is little investment so often those new jobs are not even there. Many of those entry level office jobs are being automated or hived off to overseas.
4) there is no optimism or hint of a bright future ahead. Everything is getting worse, harder and more expensive.
5) there is no national pride or story to be part of.
Dear Unemployed Young people
Please step up and work for incredibly low wages (in real terms) for no future hope or prospects as we attempt to automate everything, in the scummy that isnt hiring so that we can pay the pensioners their triple locked pensions, bus passes and other benefits which we are pretty much sure you wont get when you finally retire (lol) into a world that we have ruined due to not really giving a fuck about climate change and the future of the planet…
Kind Regards
All Governments since ever
Maybe other generations can step up for a change? I’m running out of “stepping up” capibility here.
Just going to bring up [this report](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/09/permanent-job-vacancies-in-uk-shrink-at-fastest-pace-for-four-years) from a few weeks ago:
> Vacancies for permanent jobs in the UK declined at their fastest pace for four years last month, according to a new survey that adds to the gloomy economic mood.
> Amid febrile markets and weak economic data, the monthly jobs report from the consultancy KPMG and the recruitment firm REC shows many firms reluctant to hire.
> The employer survey suggested vacancies for permanent roles had declined at the fastest pace since August 2020, when the UK was in the grip of the Covid pandemic. Temporary vacancies also fell in December.
> The labour market was slowing for much of 2024. December was the 14th month in which the jobs report registered a decline in overall vacancies.
But according to Rachel Reeves (who, unless you count election campaigns, hasn’t applied for a job since 2006) “the jobs are there.”
You can’t expect people to “step up” when society isn’t upholding its end of the bargain, who the fuck wants to work themselves to death with zero prospect of retirement, career mobility or home ownership? Get real.
Step up? Consecutive governments have worked to destroy the idea of the community, civic duty or national duty/pride. We live in a fragmented nation of individuals (apart from many minority communities that retain strong communities, tbf)….why would anyone in their right mind go out to a shit job when the alternative is fine?
You’re relying on people stepping up…why shoukd they?
Labour need to show us why…
Oh BTW every company seems to be firing people atm….so…step up to what exactly?
Stop immigration and wages will rise. We are in a semi-remote area, shortage of workers- 16 year old are on full adult minimum wage! (My lad at 17 laughed during an interview when they suggested paying him the then rate for his age of £5.50)
It’s simple supply and demand! There should be no need for ‘stepping-up’ pay people a decent wage instead of exploiting foreigners!
If businesses can not find people then they need to train them !
I always wondered why we have the system we currently have. The DWP and job centre don’t actually help you get a job. They even partner with businesses that cut staff on a whim, perpetuating the cycle of instability.
If the government was serious they would make the DWP an agency. One that actually gets you consistent work. Instead of employing a bunch of people whos only job is to check the number of applications.
Not to rain on the hate parade but this is a completely fictitious headline. Seriously, journalism is so awful these days you should never even bother reading the headline.
She spent a few minutes talking about trying to open up opportunities for young people that don’t currently exist so that young people have an opportunity ‘step up’ and take them. So no, she did not say “young people need to step up” as if they are the problem at all. That would be totally idiotic.
If you wonder why politicians always sound so robotic it’s because they are trying to stick to a script to avoid this sort of headline after using the wrong phrase that can be spun to mean something else.
Like telling a depressed person to cheer up, lol.
Is it really surprising that, with the endless supply of cheap labour driving down wages and increasing competition for jobs, plus record-high taxes, many young people are just giving up?
As someone nearing 40 having spent many a year working 7 days a week and nothing to show for it: Why the fuck should they give up their lives so you at the top can get fat while they dont even get a house to call their own for it?
Rich looking mighty tasty of late.
My daughter has been applying for jobs since she left school 2 years ago. Nobody wants to hire young people with no experience, but they can’t get experience without getting a job!
Government to young people – “You need to step up and start working” and “Young people shoukld join the armed forces and be prepared to fight for this country and be patriotic”.
Also the Government to young people – “Fuck you,. Weve taken away your right to live and work in 27 other countries, destroyed education, made housing utterly unaffordable, kept wages artifically low, ruined any chance of you ever having savings or a good pension. And we continue to let the planet burn, becuse we are moral and ethcial cowards, who bow to the billionaire class, who we also wont tax. Whilst simultanousley blaming young people for every ill in modern society,
Rachel Reeves can get to absolute fuck. The same old soundbites, the same failed policies of trying to get an infinitely growing economy with only finite resoruces. Unwilling to tackle wealth hoarding and economic inequality. But yes, young people should “stand up”.
Between her Starmer and Streeting, they are going to squander a huge parliamentary majority, simply because they won’t tax the fucking super rich.
And I say this as 51yr old guy.
Yep it’s the youngs, the poors, and the disableds that need to step up and do more for this country. Not the wealth hoarding bastards.
Do you hear that kids?
If you just step up, you too can:-
1. Work 25 to 40 years to buy your first over priced flat.
2. Work till 75 (likely) to receive your state pension.
3. Pay off that massive student loan you accrued whilst studying.
4. Ride your bicycle to work to cut carbon emissions, whilst China and rich people do whatever they choose.
5. Save your hard earned money in the bank, for it to lose its value though irresponsible government spending, monetary debasement, inflation and taxes.
6. Watch the corruption of Government and industry satisfying their insatiable desire for their own profit wreaking havoc on the environment
Just don’t go saying any ‘hurty words’ on Facebook though otherwise you will get locked up and lose your entitlement to all of the above.
Well, what’s stopping you?
Get out there and get them tiger.
Young people, in the very recent past, sacrificed far too much of their early experiences for the sake of the old.
Not being funny, right, but I was encouraged by tens of teachers, business leaders, local family run business owners and my own two parents to sink myself into £70,000 of student debt getting the qualifications *I wanted* because we were all under the impression that the UK’s economy was dynamic enough that — whatever your poison — as long as you get good results in school you’ll be set, just like mum and dad were with their free tuition.
So colour me boggled as so why I am in a generic sales job, just like many of my graduate peers, paying so much money to Student Finance — a figure that doesn’t even outpace the 7% interest.
I hate my job. I pray on my morning commute that I am run over by a taxi outside of Fenchurch Street. Not to die, obviously, but I’d love to receive a hefty payout and actually switch my brain off for 3 months.
But applying for new roles is *fucking. awful*.
There are two ends of the scale: there’s the open arms, broad requirement rat race (grad schemes, entry-level roles, civil service) where you only get considered for an interview by answering some of the most mind-boggling, unrealistic HR quizzes about office life and work ethic — where answering truthfully seems to automatically get your application discarded. Or, there’s the more specialist end where they expect, on top of a master’s degree, 5–7 years experience during a time when most graduates had their early careers obliterated by a global pandemic.
Makes me want to look abroad, in truth. I feel like I’ve been churned through the education system and thrown out the back of it in debt and truly undesired.
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