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Unemployment is affecting young people more than any other group, according to  a new BBC report.  The unemployment rate among under 25-year-olds is more than double that of any group over 30. This is no surprise, youth unemployment is nearly always higher than any other group. The question is what to do about it, and indeed how to solve the problem with a positive strategy.

At Career Energy our largest group of clients are those in their late twenties and early thirties who have made the wrong career choices. Stumbling from one job to another they reach a point at which they decide they can no longer continue in this way, and turn to us for advice. I have seen this happen so many times that I no longer believe that all these young people have made mistakes in their career choices. Rather, I firmly believe that people leaving full time education, whether school, college or university, are not ready to make long term career decisions. They need a few years in the workplace first, to understand what work is all about, how it differes from their life until now, and where they personally fit on the careers spectrum.

So at Career Energy we generally advise young people to spend a few years exploring different career options before making a long term decision as to which direction to go in. And the solution to youth unemployment must be to formalise this process of exploration. Unemployed young people, who are receiving benefits anyway, should be enouraged to take up a range of interships and work experience posts, in a variety of industries. To allow them to make effective decisions about their long term careers, and to enable them to determine what training they need to undertake to achieve their goals.

A policy along these lines would turn the negative experience of unemployment into a positive learning activity. And it would ensure that the right people got into the right jobs, which would have a beneficial impact on society as a whole and on the economy.

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Tags: Career Advice, Career Consultants, Career Energy, Career Planning, Getting A New Job, job search, Long Term Unemployed, new job, Training, unemployment

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 5:35 am and is filed under Career Advice, Career Change, Career Consultant, Career Energy, Career Planning, Getting A New Job, Training, unemployment . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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