Firms 'reducing youth recruitment'
Commercial insurance
26th May 2009
Businesses in Britain are cutting down on the number of young people they are hiring, new figures have revealed.
According to data released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), just one in five businesses in Britain (17 per cent) are planning to hire 16-year-old school-leavers over the next three months.
The latest CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook report also revealed that 45 per cent of firms polled are not planning to take on any school-leavers or graduates.
Of the more than 500 respondents to the survey, one in three are considering hiring an 18-year-old leaving school and a third have reduced the number of graduates they are recruiting this year.
CIPD public policy advisor Gerwyn Davies explained that it will be a "long, hot summer for many of this year's graduates and school leavers" as many struggle to find work and he suggested that candidates must demonstrate a wide range of "non-study related skills" to be successful in the current marketplace.
Public sector employers were more likely than those in the private and voluntary sectors to be planning to recruit young people straight out of education.
The most recent Office for National Statistics labour market figures indicated that job prospects for young people declined over the first three months of 2009, with one in six 18-24-year-olds currently unemployed.
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