Young People in the Labour Market ― Past, Present, Future

Trends in youth employment, unemployment and underemployment remain a major concern for policy makers and academics alike in most industrialised nations. Over the last 40 years, among young people in Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia, there has been a significant increase in poor, non-standard and precarious work and recent increases underemployment and unemployment. These trends are exacerbated during times of economic recession when the unemployment rate among young people is typically two to three times higher than among older age groups. This book considers labour market trends by offering a detailed examination of the changes in the experiences of young people between the 1980s recession and the global recession starting 2008. Paying particular attention to gender, race, social class and locality, the authors employ an innovative secondary analysis research design – combining contemporary data with two ‘historical’ datasets from the 1980s – with the aim of exploring the ways in which the experiences of unemployed, insecure and vulnerable 18-25 year-olds changed between two key periods of economic instability. With young people, as new workers, being first to experience the new conditions of the global post-recession economy, this UK focused study will serve as an ‘illustrative case’ that will draw attention to the predicament of young people across all advanced societies.

Andy Furlong is Professor of Social Inclusion and Education and Dean for Research in the College of Social Science at the University of Glasgow; Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia

John Goodwin is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester

Henrietta O’Connor is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester

Sarah Hadfield is a researcher at the University of Leicester

Stuart Hall is a Senior Researcher in the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change at the University of Glasgow

Kevin Lowden is a Senior Researcher in the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change at the University of Glasgow

Reka Plugor works as a Researcher at the University of Leicester