Tag: unemployment

No to youth unemployment and low pay!

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Protest on November 20 to make the super-rich pay

Fight for our futures, not their wars!

Text from a new Socialist Students leaflet – available to order for your local campaigning by contacting socialistudents@gmail.com. Or to print locally access the PDF by clicking the image opposite.

We are the first generation in history to be worse off than the one before. One million young people in Britain are currently not in education, employment or training. Youth unemployment is at its highest level in over ten years.

In the sixth richest country in the world, how can it be that a million young people are thrown on the scrap heap, and millions more have no hope of a decent future?

The richest 50 families in Britain control more wealth than half of the population. But the bosses and super-rich fat cats would rather hoard that wealth than investing in high-quality jobs, education, public services and homes that could give young people a future.

That’s the logic of capitalism: maximising profits for a tiny few at the expense of the vast majority. To win a real future, young people have to get organised for a socialist alternative to capitalism – a system where society’s wealth, resources and technology are used to meet the needs of all people and our planet.

That means building a movement to take wealth and resources out the hands of the super-rich. In our schools, universities, workplaces and local areas, we could start by getting young people organised around the following demands:

  • No to youth unemployment! The government should massively increase investment in public services to create socially useful, fulfilling jobs for all.
  • No to low pay! For the immediate introduction of a £15-an-hour minimum wage, with no exemptions based on age. Labour must guarantee the scrapping of the unfair youth pay rates for under-21s.
  • No to bogus apprenticeships and training schemes! For well-paid apprenticeships and training schemes with the guarantee of a job at the end.
  • For free, fully funded education for all! Introduce living grants not loans, scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt. Stop the cuts in education.
  • Reopen libraries, youth clubs, leisure centres and other ‘third spaces’! Our councils should refuse to make cuts and should instead fight for funding from the government to ensure young people have places to go and things to do.

The crisis facing young people isn’t just in Britain. Capitalism is an international system, which means that young people everywhere are facing a future of more war, climate breakdown, unemployment and insecurity.

That’s why young people across Europe are coming together to build an international movement under the slogan, ‘Fight for our future – not their wars!’, with a day of international youth walkouts and protests on Friday 20 November.

In Britain, Socialist Students is trying to get young people organised for the biggest possible day of youth walkouts on November 20. We say fighting for our future means fighting for socialist change. If you want to join us in building the international youth walkouts in Britain, get in touch by click the button below:

Get involved in Socialist Students

Fight for socialism against the dawn of the living dead jobs

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Fight for socialism against the dawn of the living dead jobs

Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students

It’s no secret that an unemployment crisis has been looming over Britain for years.

The employment rate has been falling for the past two years, exposing the fragility of the capitalist system.

Young people entering the job market are particularly affected by this crisis. It has been reported that, for some entry-level jobs, as many as 141 graduates are competing for a single job. At the same time, one in seven young people are now currently unemployed.

This figure doesn’t even take into account the thousands of people trapped in precarious employment circumstances, such as those in exploitative zero-hour contacts, with no certainty as to their income from one month to the next, and little-to-no protection in case of sickness.

As we enter 2026, the situation is set to worsen. Economists warn that an increasing number of so-called ‘zombie firms’ are likely to collapse, as increased energy prices, an end to cheap credit, and increases to national insurance contributions ‘kill’ them off.

For defenders of capitalism, the closing of zombie firms may be masqueraded as good for the economy, but it is ultimately workers that bear the price of their collapse with mass redundancies.

This incoming crisis is not the result of bad managements or unfortunate timing. It flows directly from the short-term, profit-driven logic of capitalism.

So to fight this crisis we have to fight against capitalism itself. Workers and young people can fight for a socialist future that guarantees jobs, pay and conditions and offers real possibilities for retraining. We should demand that any failing industries be nationalised under democratic workers’ control, and take the economic power held by the bosses into our own hands to plan to provide a decent job, housing and standard of living for all.

Youth unemployment: fight for jobs, apprenticeships and education

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Adam Gillman, Socialist Students

Young people across the country are desperate to find decent jobs with pay they can live on. They are being forced to pay the price for the weakness of British capitalism and face the brunt of companies slowing down hiring and getting rid of some jobs altogether. The overall unemployment rate is now 5.1% and one in seven young people are unemployed.

What’s the response from the Labour government? Pat McFadden, work and pensions secretary, announced before Christmas that a scheme will be launched that will take benefits off young people who don’t have a “good reason” to take a six-month job placement funded by the state.

The government fully subsidising a job for 25 hours a week at minimum wage would be great for the bosses. They get effectively free labour for six months, with workers that are forced to be there otherwise they lose their benefits, and with no guarantee of a permanent full-time job at the end of it! It gives employers a more exploitable workforce, which can allow them to drive down the pay and conditions of all workers.

This would be a return to the ‘workfare’ policies of Tory prime minister David Cameron. As then, the current Labour government is attempting to force young people into jobs with inadequate pay and terrible conditions.

We should point the finger at those who are really responsible for the unemployment crisis – the big bosses! There’s no end of productive work that could be done if the work was shared out, and jobs were created with decent pay, training and conditions.

We demand:

  • High-quality jobs and apprenticeships with democratic trade union oversight and trade union rates of pay
  • Abolish zero-hour contracts with a right to flexible working
  • A trade union struggle for the immediate implementation of the TUC demand of a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all as a step towards a real living wage, without exemptions. For the minimum wage to automatically increase linked to average earnings or inflation, whichever is higher
  • The right of all workers, including apprentices, to join a trade union
  • The TUC (Trades Union Congress) should follow up on its conference decision and call a national demonstration for high-quality jobs, homes and services for all