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We’re in the same storm but not the same boat’: lessons for the future from our FE Rapid Evidence Review

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 15 September 2021

Ken Spours and Paul Grainger.

‘There will be a K-shaped recovery with winners and losers: we are all in the same storm but not in the same boat.’ (FE college leader)

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in the globalised world. In terms of a health emergency, there has been nothing on this scale since the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 – and we now live in a much more connected world, of course, that is also experiencing an even greater threat from the climate emergency.

The pandemic bears all the symptoms of a wicked problem, due to our incomplete knowledge of its effects and interdependencies as it impacts on a vulnerable Further Education (FE) sector. The UK’s FE colleges include provision for the more deprived sections of the community, and specialise in preparing young people for working life. Both aspects have (more…)

Covid-19: how youth unemployment is taking on worrying new patterns

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 5 August 2021

Hans Dietrich, Golo Henseke, Juliane Achatz, Silke Anger, Bernhard Christoph, Alexander Patzina.

Despite economic and institutional differences between the two countries, youth unemployment figures in both the UK and Germany rose during the Covid-19 pandemic and reached a peak in August 2020. Since then, they have generally gone down in both countries. Three aspects are important in this regard: the total number of unemployed youth, the pattern of how young people enter into unemployment, and the length of time they remain unemployed. Our new analysis shows that not only have more young people lost their jobs, they have also spent more time out of work. Despite these similar patterns, youth unemployment in the UK has remained consistently higher than in Germany.

This two-country analysis is part of a broader European perspective.

The development of youth unemployment during the Covid-19 pandemic

After the 2008 recession, the number of young unemployed in the European Union and most member states fell from 2013 to 2019. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic (more…)

Ready for work? UK youth ambitious but uncertain about their future careers

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 22 July 2021

Ingrid Schoon, Golo Henseke.

What are the career expectations of young people aged 16-25 in the current climate of economic uncertainty – and how do schools prepare them for the transition into the labour market in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic? These questions are examined in a new report out today (July 21). The report is part of a large-scale project to track youth employment, learning, career development and wellbeing during the pandemic in the UK and abroad.

Career expectations

Based on data collected in March and again in May 2021 from a representative sample of 1,542 16 to 25-year-olds in Britain we find that young people have ambitious educational and occupational goals, although there are high levels of uncertainty about future careers.

Young people who had formal career preparation, such as (more…)

Covid-19 and young people: we need to talk about job skills

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 15 July 2021

Golo Henseke, Ingrid Schoon.

Today is World Youth Skills Day and this year it’s more important than ever.

From the start of the first lockdown in March 2020, young people’s prospects worsened significantly across many areas of their lives. Alongside challenges to wellbeing, young people were confronted with lost learning at school, colleges and universities, heightened labour market uncertainty, and a potential decline in internships and work experience placements.

While lost learning at primary and secondary level received significant attention, the impact of lost job skills learning and career preparation for young people has been largely missing from the conversation.

In a new report, which will be out on July 21, we shed light on young people’s career readiness and how it might affect their behaviour as they begin navigating an uncertain labour market. The report is part of a large-scale project to track youth employment, (more…)

Will Covid-19 vaccines be enough to get the economy back on track, curb youth unemployment, and mitigate mental health effects?.

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 12 January 2021

Golo Henseke.

With the country in the third national lookdown, a Covid-19 free future can sometimes be hard to imagine. But the roll out of first vaccines, albeit slow, does fuel hopes that we can put the health crisis behind us before too long. But how swiftly will the economic recovery follow, and what will this mean for our nation’s young people?

Our new project examining the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts on youth employment, learning and well-being has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). We will provide robust evidence on the pandemic’s consequences for young people’s employment, learning, and well-being.

A swift economic recovery seems essential to keep people in work or help them return to paid employment. Despite the successful furlough scheme which protected workers from the worst, young people have been hit (more…)