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Half of all UK jobs shed since Labour came to power are among under-25s

With the government under fire before the autumn budget, Guardian analysis shows the dramatic leap in UK unemployment to the highest levels since the Covid pandemic is being fuelled by a youth jobs crisis.

As many as 46% of the 170,000 jobs lost from company payrolls since June last year are from those under the age of 25 – the equivalent of more than 150 jobs lost per day.

Youth unemployment has increased from 14.8% a year ago to 15.3%, the highest level outside the Covid pandemic since 2015, and more than three times the headline jobless rate for people over the age of 16. Long-term youth joblessness is also at a decade high.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/15/half-of-all-uk-jobs-shed-since-labour-came-to-power-are-among-under-25s

Who could have foreseen this issue.

Anyone who studies Labour's history. They leave office with fewer jobs than they inherited. It's a side-effect of their broken business model.

Youth unemployment was no longer a thing under the Tories.

Hmm - do we have employment rate data for the young? We've discussed in detail on PB why unemployment isn't the full picture - indeed the latest employment and inactivity figures look quite good for the working population as a whole.

If anyone can be bothered: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/employmentunemploymentandeconomicinactivitybyagegroupseasonallyadjusteda05sa

And statista's summary of that data have inactivity falling for the young since Labour got into power: https://www.statista.com/statistics/382428/uk-economic-inactivity-rate-by-age/?srsltid=AfmBOoomqBMlDwjTO_IkIbCR-Dcm66yjivBQ_prWQXfjyhPo7KFgMeMk

I have to admit, very regretfully, that all my late teen/early twenties relatives....... grandchildren, great-nephews etc ........ are having trouble getting onto the bottom rungs of the employment ladder. The only one who is working has a zero-hours job with few, if any, prospects of advancement.
This isn't why I voted Labour

It is quite interesting - there's definitely been a big uptick in unemployment for young people, but the inactivity rate is down and the the employment rate is stable (or even a bit up, depending on where you measure from). So it would appear the reason for the change in the labour market is more young people entering the workforce over the last year or so.

I can't think of a reason for that. Is the number of students dropping at the moment?

My granddaughter, who graduated this year, has said none of her year have gained employment yet

My niece tells me that her son, who graduates this year is applying for dozens of jobs. So far, unsuccessfully. His cousin, my younger grandson has gone to Oz. Temporarily, permanently? Who knows.

Same story with my granddaughter

I've the opposite problem. Nearly all of my son's friends have gone off and got jobs, normally starting at £100k+, but he is doing a BPhil for 2 more years at very considerable expense. So things could be worse!

What graduate job starts at £100k+? Other than maybe commercial barrister or Goldman Sachs banker?

There are IT jobs well in excess of £100k (multi times) for the right graduates.

Google engineers start at £62k
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-New-Grad-Salaries-E9079_D_KO7,33.htm


'An entry level position recruit at Amazon can expect to receive a £75,000 salary with a £15,000 bonus, according to a research from Emolument.com, a salary benchmarking site.'

'Apple junior employees typically get a salary of £72,000 with a potential £11,000 bonus on top.'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/amazon-tops-list-of-the-best-paying-tech-firms-for-junior-employees-a7007371.html

ML / AI grads with a PhD are on a lot more than £100k.

That is PhD grads, DavidL was saying undergrads who finished their degree

My son with his 2:1 in programming is working in quality control for Sony on minimum wage. It must be different in Scotland.

Yes but even in London I can find barely any jobs starting on over £100k for first graduate job

A salary of £100k would put in the 96th percentile. Sometimes PB goes a bit silly when it comes to money.

Half of all UK jobs shed since Labour came to power are among under-25s

With the government under fire before the autumn budget, Guardian analysis shows the dramatic leap in UK unemployment to the highest levels since the Covid pandemic is being fuelled by a youth jobs crisis.

As many as 46% of the 170,000 jobs lost from company payrolls since June last year are from those under the age of 25 – the equivalent of more than 150 jobs lost per day.

Youth unemployment has increased from 14.8% a year ago to 15.3%, the highest level outside the Covid pandemic since 2015, and more than three times the headline jobless rate for people over the age of 16. Long-term youth joblessness is also at a decade high.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/15/half-of-all-uk-jobs-shed-since-labour-came-to-power-are-among-under-25s

Who could have foreseen this issue.

Anyone who studies Labour's history. They leave office with fewer jobs than they inherited. It's a side-effect of their broken business model.

Youth unemployment was no longer a thing under the Tories.

Hmm - do we have employment rate data for the young? We've discussed in detail on PB why unemployment isn't the full picture - indeed the latest employment and inactivity figures look quite good for the working population as a whole.

If anyone can be bothered: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/employmentunemploymentandeconomicinactivitybyagegroupseasonallyadjusteda05sa

And statista's summary of that data have inactivity falling for the young since Labour got into power: https://www.statista.com/statistics/382428/uk-economic-inactivity-rate-by-age/?srsltid=AfmBOoomqBMlDwjTO_IkIbCR-Dcm66yjivBQ_prWQXfjyhPo7KFgMeMk

I have to admit, very regretfully, that all my late teen/early twenties relatives....... grandchildren, great-nephews etc ........ are having trouble getting onto the bottom rungs of the employment ladder. The only one who is working has a zero-hours job with few, if any, prospects of advancement.
This isn't why I voted Labour

It is quite interesting - there's definitely been a big uptick in unemployment for young people, but the inactivity rate is down and the the employment rate is stable (or even a bit up, depending on where you measure from). So it would appear the reason for the change in the labour market is more young people entering the workforce over the last year or so.

I can't think of a reason for that. Is the number of students dropping at the moment?

My granddaughter, who graduated this year, has said none of her year have gained employment yet

My niece tells me that her son, who graduates this year is applying for dozens of jobs. So far, unsuccessfully. His cousin, my younger grandson has gone to Oz. Temporarily, permanently? Who knows.

Same story with my granddaughter

It's awful isn't it. You and I want to come on here and boast about how well our grandchildren are doing, how proud they are making us. How they are making the worst;d a better place.
But, with 20-somethings we can't.
Our 30-something is doing OK. But he's got a horrendous mortgage.

My grandson is just about managing a spoon now but still very much prefers his fingers. Introduced him to mashed raspberries last night. It was hilarious as every now and again the tartness made him shiver but he loved them. They went everywhere but a fair number made the mouth.

Wes Streeting has been accused of taking a “chaotic and incoherent approach” to reforming the NHS which makes it unlikely the government will hit its own targets, according to a damning report by the Institute for Government (IfG).

The report praises elements of how the health secretary has managed the health service in his first year in office, including improving performance and staff retention in hospitals. Thepay settlement he reached with resident doctors last year avoided a winter plagued by NHS strikes

But it also criticises significant aspects of his performance, including the way he handled the abolition of NHS England and his lack of action to stem the exodus of senior GPs.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/15/wes-streeting-accused-of-chaotic-and-incoherent-approach-to-nhs-reform

There’s quite a few Twitter stories about people who have just graduated in medicine or nursing, who are finding it very difficult to get training placements in the NHS.

There’s likely more to a lot of the stories, such as an unwillingness to move hundreds of miles, but on the face of it there seems to be a planning problem within the NHS.

We’ve been taking about this for *years* on PB.

To recap. To make a medic, you send them to university. Then you send them for x years of training in actual hospitals. This is proven methodology and works - same round the world.

The government caps the university places, then provides less than that in training places. In addition the system of allocating places to people in the NHS involves such fun as randomly sending them round the country.

So we educate far fewer medics than the NHS requires, train less and then treat them in a manner that a 19th cent mill owner would regard as a bit fruity.

So we make up the huge gap by importing medics.

Further, these numbers are increasing far slower than the NHS is growing. So our dependence on foreign labour is growing.

To add to the fun - remember the A level/uni fun during COVID. Some university classes were expanded by 25% because of that. Guess who is coming off the end of the production line, now? And no, they didn’t increase training places in the NHS.

So we have a shortage of training places in hospitals.

I do wonder if Streeting is letting this happen to put pressure on the treasury to release funds to increase the very expensive hospital training places. Or is that giving him too much credit?

Although my depression continues to fog my brain, I am cheered by the grotesque chaos of a Labour government, a LABOUR government hiring special advisors to scuttle round the Commons handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.

The Budget is sunk and there's still a week and a half before they unveil it. McSweeney will go, Reeves surely must go, I struggle to see how Starmer doesn't go.

The LabCon in full effect. Labour are the Tories, Labour are the Tories, naah naah naah naah etc

Marvellous

Of all the flaws you might have thought Starmer possessed incompetence wasn't one of them. I'm embarrassed for him watching him flounder. There were a few pointers in opposition particularly with his appointments but not many and facing the perfidious Boris Johnson disguised most of them

From a New Statesman article.

"Fears that Britain is due for a bout of mass violence on such a scale – or greater – have metastasised through the body politic in recent months. Speaking to the New Statesman earlier this year, Lisa Nandy said she believed that northern England was so tense it could “go up in flames” at any time. Dominic Cummings has claimed the intelligence services are discussing the potential for “racial/ethnic/mob/gang violence”. David Betz, a professor at the King’s College Department of War Studies, has gone further still and won much attention for predicting that Britain is sliding towards civil war.

According to Betz’s argument, governments such as our own can no longer peacefully manage multicultural societies fractured by ethnic grievance. We can therefore expect cities such as London to become “feral” with no-go zones spreading as the state’s authority dims. If civic conflict does break out, one side will push the metropolis into crisis by cutting off power and supplies, he argues. Such a scenario would leave the Met officers trained in Gravesend fighting to avert anarchy."

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/11/the-british-police-are-preparing-for-civil-war

What a load of cobblers. Only someone who exclusively does their research on Twitter would come up with such tosh.