The impact of COVID-19 on young people’s prospects in the labour market and in education is rapidly becoming a cause for concern.

According to the IFS, young workers today will be hit the hardest. Youth unemployment could potentially rise to one million young people. We know that the scarring effects of short and long-term unemployment are disproportionately experienced by younger generations, and those facing disadvantage, so it is vital that we do everything we can to protect these groups now.

In response to the crisis, Impetus, Youth Futures Foundation, Youth Employment UK, the Institute for Employment Studies and The Prince’s Trust formed the Youth Employment Group (YEG) to bring together key leaders and experts around the youth employment sector to help drive the UK’s response.

The Youth Employment Group is focusing on the immediate and longer-term impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on the employment prospects of young people, in particular those facing the greatest challenges. There are six working groups covering the main areas of concern:

Reducing job-losses in the immediate term
Providing employability support during lockdown
Ensuring a quality welfare-to-work system post-lockdown
Encouraging a healthy youth labour market post-lockdown
Supporting viable and quality self-employment for young people
Ensuring effective and accurate use of data

The group provides the opportunity to work collaboratively, and with governments and policy makers, to ensure that young people – especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds – are best supported during COVID-19 and its aftermath.

There is also has a dedicated Youth Voice Team, who involve young people in the working groups to ensure their views and insight is incorporated into any recommendations or output from the group.

Ministers and officials are regularly meeting the Youth Employment Group which represent over 100 youth employment organisations including Youth Employment UK and the Princes Trust. These are helping to shape the Department’s policy to ensure young people receive the right support in both the short and long term.

From the Government Response to the Work and Pensions Committee First Report of Session 2019–21: DWP's response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The launch of the Youth Employment Group was covered in The Independent, and the call for an Opportunity Guarantee with the wider sector was covered in The Sunday Times. The Secretariat and members of the Youth Voice Team have met with ministers and officials from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

If you would like to stay informed and share information, please join the LinkedIn Group below. If you have research, insights and resource to contribute and would like your organisation to become a member of the Youth Employment Group, please contact Samantha Windett, Chair of the Youth Employment Group, via the button below.

Member organisations

To find out about the other COVID-19 response coalitions Impetus is involved in, click here.