NINE IN TEN CAN’T AFFORD PRESENTS OR TRAVEL TO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS
Christmas is looking bleak for unemployed young people, according to new figures, for which over 400 NEETS (16-24s not in employment, education or training – including graduates) were interviewed.
Nine in ten said they will struggle to afford the travel costs to social occasions to celebrate with their family and friends – and the same number said they won’t be able to afford festive gifts for their loved ones.
And the research, by youth support charity Future You, revealed some even more shocking stats. Seven in ten young unemployed people said they are struggling to pay their weekly food bills, and the same number can’t pay their rent or heating bills.
Even more worryingly, their finances are impacting their health. Almost half (47%) of young unemployed people said they don’t have the money they need for medicines and more than six in ten (63%) can’t afford dental treatment. Emma-Jane Cross, CEO and Founder of FutureYou (part of The BeatBullying Group) said:
“We know unemployment can have a devastating effect, particularly in the long-term, however this research shows the immediate impact it is having on the health and wellbeing of the many young people who are struggling to make ends meet.
“With Christmas just around the corner, it’s not surprising that young people are concerned about paying for things like travel and social occasions, but we shouldn’t underestimate just how isolating unemployment can be, particularly during the festive season.
“Young people tell us that the experience of being unemployed had left them feeling depressed, useless and hopeless about the future. If swift action is not taken, then we risk condemning an entire generation to an increased risk of future health problems, which could cost the country billions.”
Graduate Fog is extremely worried about these new statistics. Can it really be true that young people are having to go without food and medical necessities, because they can’t find a job?
*ARE YOU FEELING THE SQUEEZE THIS CHRISTMAS?
Are you cutting back on luxuries like gifts and going out? Or have things got so bad you’re going without essentials like food and medical necessities?
Me and my boyfriend can’t afford to have the heating on in our flat – it’s just too expensive. Luckily it doesn’t get that cold in here… The sad thing is we’re both in work!!
Young people should learn from the older generation regarding thrift. The key to making the best of a bad situation is being resourceful and tightening the purse strings even more than before. “It’s the thought that counts” should sound like a klaxon horn for those who feel they have to spend a minimum amount on presents to match what they are given. So young people can’t afford travel to family AND friends, then let it be family they choose to visit at Christmas, even if it’s only one set of relatives.
So young people struggle to eat properly or heat their accommodation properly. “Austerity” is something that the well-heeled have recently discovered, but the workers have known and lived with and through, not for one generation but for several generations. Each generation lived within their means and cut their cloth accordingly. They tightened their belts when things got tough and never got anything on credit. Millions of Britons struggle every day. They don’t complain because they know no one is going to come to their rescue, neither the state, nor their boss, nor charities or the bank. Millions of working families struggle to put food on the table, clothes on their backs. Their long-term health suffers, as seen through the differing life expectancy figures.
Depression is something that millions of workers suffer each week and month of the year because low wages means going without many things. But there ate moments of happiness, too – birthdays, weddings. christenings, and yes Easter and Christmas too because it meant the family came together.
Young people will suffer depression because of unemployment and there’s nothing anyone can do except to provide a bit of emotional support to snap them out of it and to keep their chin up.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
@Brian
You know that dismissing depression as something you can ‘snap out of’ is not at all helpful, right?
Yes Brian, I think you need to realise that there is a huge difference between being down due to circumstances and medical, clinical depression where you can’t function and need medication and or/psychological therapy to get better. The work “depression” is too often used for temporary, normal unhappiness. I tried for over a year to get better on my own and believe me it didn’t work. People with clinical depression can’t feel the moments of happiness at Christmas, birthdays etc. It’s an unrelenting black cloud. You could have everything you ever wanted and still feel like you want to die. It’s chemical-and it’s hell. I’ve been there and survived.
I stand by what I’ve written. Too many young people give up too easily these days. They need to develop resilience and they do this by taking action at the first sign of continued depression, before they become clinically depressed. Often, this involves an external stimulus – advertising of courses by colleges or training programmes by jobcentres or training centres. Older people involved in young peoples’ lives – parents, friends or support workers – can play a part in suggesting college, training or even voluntary work.
Even with the best will in the world, there will remain short-term unemployment for months ahead and periods of employment for 7 or 8 per cent of the labour force. Unfortunately, too many campaigners highlight the problem and stop at calling on the government to provide jobs. In an attitude towards the government of “you caused the problem, so you fix it”, often they fail to give encouraging practical advice to young unemployed people to take steps to overcome feelings of inadequacy, despair and hopelessness.
The team at Graduate Fog do a good job at bringing to our attention the current issues, but I’m sure they look for difference of opinion, rather than simply judging surveys and research at face value. I developed the skill of critical analysis at university – as did many graduates – and just because a research group might have several postgraduate researchers or professionals with years of experience, it doesn’t mean they are always right in their conclusions and recommendations. It is necessary to be able to discern between different politically-motivated groups and thinktanks when considering the research reports. Every group is motivated on the left, right or centre of politics. Very few individuals and groups have altruistic goals – to think otherwise is to be naive – and perhaps we should focus a little more on the motives for these groups to highlight these social and economic issues discussed in this blog post.
I agree young people who are unemployed need support sooner to avoid slipping into depression. Most people unemployed for more than 6 months need help to avoid losing hope. The Jobcentre isn’t helpful, some “advisors” know nothing of the job market and have no pastoral skills. My parents did encourage me to retrain but I didn’t want too, I’d put all my energy into the 3 years of my degree and didn’t want to do another year at masters level, getting into debt, with still no guarantee of a job. I would have done a short training course that would help but I couldn’t find anything appropriate. I did an ECDL but that didn’t help me get a job either. In a way I think I’d have done better graduating now, when the economic climate is even worse, than I did in 2004 because I felt more shocked and more of a failure at how hard I found securing work. If I’d known circumstances were bleak I would have realised sooner I’d need to do lots of volunteering in order to have a chance of a paid role.
There are some organisations that have been set up recently to give a variety of advice, but I don’t know if they do anything more than lay out the options. Then there’s your churches that provide budgeting advice, although many churches infer that it is the individual’s fault for lacking moral fibre and that if he turned to Jesus and ‘trust in the Lord’ he would get a job and all his money worries will be over. Then you get those who believe in “tough love”, admonishing the person for ‘overspending’ and who “tell it how it is”.
I think many young people are born into poverty, grow up with poverty and have difficulty escaping poverty. Wouldn’t it be a perfect world if we could all manage to save just enough. At the age of 42, I’ve just begun to escape poverty, but I don’t know what my old age pension will look like.
Young people in poverty can have a glimmer of hope of escaping absolute poverty by cutting out completely all socialising that costs money, take an entry-level smartphone, buy the cheapest of everything and live like that all year round, only loosening the purse strings slightly at Christmas. And cut down even in work. Try this for 10 years and you might stand a chance. I learnt this when I became long-term unemployed when I was 20. I stopped socialising with my friends who worked and I couldn’t care less what they thought, because I hated being poor just so I could keep my old schoolmates. That’s life!
I went to a talk for startups yesterday, they suggested hiring unemployed graduates as unpaid interns as so many willing to work for nothing. SHOCKING !
I have met some very very clever unemployed people with advanced degrees, even met a big issue seller with a ma, it is shocking stuff out there, I strongly suspect they will eventually get together and form a revolution, they have nothing to lose anymore !
Hi Jason. Would you please tell me who gave that talk?
That is NOT good advice at all. Start up businesses are in no position to take on unpaid interns and stay on the right side of the law.
Was a talk at the city business library yesterday.
http://www.bridgelincoln.co.uk/
By some unemployed small business advisors who have gone self employed.
I read a memo on a public internet site a few years ago, a briefing by to Small to Medium Enterprises – I’m not prepared to say who it was given by – advising them to employ young graduates instead of mature graduates, since young graduates are so used to living in poverty that they will jump at a low starting salary and be grateful, plus they are malleable. However, mature graduates were used to a good standard of living and would expect a higher starting salary, plus they have picked up bad habits are thus less malleable. Would you Adam and Eve it?
London is awash with unemployed graduates, a lot are starting to go to firebox london and listen to lectures on Karl Marx, I have to be honest, things were never this bad in the 80s, it would not surprise me if we really did have a revoltuion. I have never met so many bright people with so little to do and it effects all ages, I meet unemployed lawyers,mba’s, ex city traders, all the time in London.
We are living in very very sad times.
@Jason Palmer I agree. I’m ready for a revolution. I’m on a short course about starting your own business (I do like the idea plus us unemployed have to do something with our time) but he really emphasised knowing your industry and working in it before ideally. How am I meant to do that when I can’t get a job?! Maybe I’ll give it a go anyway as low start up costs and not much to lose.
I too fall into the category of unemployed graduate. this last Christmas period was brutal. if like me you are tired of waiting to be saved and you want to do something about it, sign up to my Facebook page “networking 101.2” and hopefully brainstorming can begin.
Yes there will eventually be an uprising. But first you have to properly impoverish the middle classes aswell. Then you will see fireworks.