The Second Midlands Youth Labour Market Forum (MYLMF) took place at the University of Aston on 25th of November 2015. The Paths2Work team presented the preliminary findings from the Paths2Work project to an audience comprised of practitioners, policymakers and others with a professional interest in young people’s employment, training and educational opportunities. Regional stakeholders also provided short presentations relevant to the interests of MYLMF members. To find more information about the event and access the presentation from the Paths2Work team, click on the link below:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/research/pathways/event/

We continue with our blog contributions from members of the Paths2Work team. In this blog, Professor Noel Whiteside talks about policies for young people in the 1930s and today as part of the Paths2Work -Project 1:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/research/pathways/blogs/

The Paths2Work research team is delighted to announce a Project Launch Event, to take place on Thursday 13^th November 2014 at the University of Warwick.

Audience and agenda: This event will bring together regional policy-makers, employers and representatives of organisations that work with young people and are concerned about their transitions from education to employment. In this half-day event, a team presentation about the research project Paths2Work will be delivered while a number of leading regional stakeholders will talk about the issues from their perspectives. What do they see as the key issues in the Midlands Youth Labour Market with reference to the education, training and opportunities for work experience; paid and unpaid?

The aims of the event are:

• To inform relevant stakeholders and policy makers in the Midlands about a large, multi-institutional ESRC-funded project exploring young people’s transitions from education to employment in the Midlands, with a focus on the increasing incidence of work experience, unpaid work and involuntary temporary and part-time work
• To invite stakeholders in the Midlands to contribute their insights and views regarding this project in order to ensure that we are asking the right questions and the project output will be of relevance to groups and individuals concerned with young people’s transitions into employment in the Midlands; and
• To initiate a Midlands Youth Labour Market Forum, to share research findings from a range of relevant projects and discuss issues of concern to members, with meetings alternating among the research partner universities

This project addresses high priority social, economic and policy-related issues and has the potential to make a huge impact at regional and national levels.

Places at this free event are limited. If you would like to be register interest in the project and/or would like to attend the launch event, please click here.

Employment researchers predict unpaid work could soon become the norm for all young people trying to enter the job market.

A team of researchers from the universities of Warwick, Leicester, Aston and the Open University are about to start a large-scale project to look at the often ‘unstable and fragmented’ experiences of young people as they begin their careers.

Previous studies from the University of Warwick revealed that 41% of graduates had taken on unpaid work experience during their course and after graduation. The public sector was shown to have the highest number of students and graduates who had done unpaid work (see Futuretrack).

The new project, Precarious Pathways to Employment for Young People, will examine the experiences of all young people, not just graduates, from school leaving age upwards. The project is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Project leader Professor Kate Purcell, from the University of Warwick’s Institute for Employment Research, said: “For increasing numbers of young people in the UK, the pathways into employment to work are unstable and fragmented. As employers demand evidence of 'employability skills', work placements and internships have become an integral part of secondary and higher education, and of early labour market experience.

“Unpaid, temporary and part-time work may soon become the norm for all young people as they start on their chosen career paths. Much of this activity is unrecorded in employment statistics. The increased early labour market experience of (often involuntary) temporary or part-time work that provides experience of employment but does not provide a living wage for young job-seekers, adds to the precarious picture of current youth access to opportunity.”

The Precarious Pathways to Employment project will have four interlinked strands looking primarily at the areas of Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester, together with a broader analysis of employment trends and unwaged work in the UK.