Precarious pathways from education to
employment for young people
Precarious pathways from education to employment for young people
Year 2
Year 1
Project1
Young
Transitions
people’s
from
pathways
education
to
into
employment
employment
the
ininprevious
Midlands
recessions.
during
previousabout
Lessons
recessions
policy
and in
the Midlands
practice
from
in the 1930s
the 1930s and
and 1980s?
Project 2
Project 3
Pathways into
employment for school
and college leavers
Graduate pathways into
employment
Project 4
Employers’ perspectives on the recruitment of
new labour market entrants
Year 3
1980s?
Coordination of findings from all the projects:
The role of non-standard employment, work experience,
unpaid work and internships in the transition from
education to employment in the Midlands (and lessons
from the past)
Young people’s unemployment benefits in
the 1930s
Part of Project 1: Policy & Practice:
historical & geographical perspectives
Matthew Cooper, PhD student, IER
Key Research Questions
• How do authorities decide who should receive
what help?
– What criteria are used to assess claims and assign
people between different systems?
– Who gains what rights (if any) as a consequence?
• What conditions are then attached to that
help?
– Such as job search monitoring and sanctions, ‘test
and task’ work, ‘workfare’, detention in
institutions, compulsory training?
How did this work in Birmingham in the
1930s?
• Unemployment benefits divided between
Insurance based benefits (run nationally), and
the rebranded poor law (locally).
• Young people divided between ‘Juvenile’ (1418) and adult (18+) claimants.
Different groups are subject to very different
treatment.
How did this work in Birmingham in the
1930s? Two themes of particular interest:
(i) Exclusion of outsiders
• National government policy is to encourage mobility
of labour. Setting up schemes to help young and
juvenile unemployed relocate to prosperous areas, like
Birmingham.
• But…Birmingham LA is keen to limit rights of migrants
to poor law assistance and to send unemployed back.
• In any case practical problems. Low wages mean
difficult for young people to live outside of family
home.
(ii)
Disciplining of insiders
• Policy for ‘juveniles’ was of compulsory attendance
at a Juvenile Instruction Centre. The over 18s were
subject to little compulsory training.
• Benefits could be withdrawn for non attendance.
• Aimed to promote board based employability and
prevent ‘demoralisation’ through school like set-up.
The differences and similarities between 1930s and current
and recent policies will be a key theme in my analyses as
the research progresses.
Project 2: Precarious Pathways for nonGraduates
Phil Mizen,
Charoula Tzanakou and Gaby Atfield
Factors related to getting a job
Qualifications
Experience
Employment
Personal
attributes
Skills
“[Experience is] what employers actually look for
nowadays, they don’t actually look for qualifications
anymore”
Neil, 18, Birmingham
Getting Experience to get Experience
“Say if you want to be in retail you have to have
experience in retail before you get in there”
Hayden, 17, Birmingham
“Say there’s three of youse in an interview, three of
youse getting picked for a job, any one of youse gonna
get it, the kid with no experience or the kid with some
experience or the kid with loads of experience, obviously
the kid with loads of experience is gonna get chosen, so
if you have loads of experience, you’ve got no problem”
Kenan, 18, Coventry
Work experience can particularly important
– For those who want to find work quickly and
easily
– ….who want to work part-time to fit around study,
family commitments, etc.
– …..who want to try out particular types of work
– ……have no other routes into the labour market
“It’s not the best jobs but it’s something that
gets you money, you know, puts money in the
back of your pocket, you know, got to grab what
you take, basically.”
Steven, 18, Coventry
Work experience develops basic skills and
confidence
• Importance of soft skills, directly and
indirectly:
“Before I started my first job, I couldn’t talk to
anyone, and after having a part-time job for
about nearly two years, I could come into a
place like this and talk to absolutely anyone, get
on with them and know what to do basically”
Brett, 22, Birmingham
Instrumental value - Personal attributes
• Having had a job shows that you have the
characteristics and attributes necessary to
have a job – you are ‘job ready’
• Overcoming stereotypes:
– young people are lazy, unreliable, unwilling
– racial and religious stereotypes
Obtaining Qualifications (i)
Earning and learning as a route to gaining
qualifications or to make up for not having them:
“Apprenticeships are probably the easiest way of getting
like into work”
David, 21, Coventry
“It’s alright having the social life, going out after school
with your mates or messing around in maths or stuff like
that, but you need your GCSEs, you need to know the
stuff, if you wanna go somewhere in life you don’t wanna
be how I was”
Amy, 19, Coventry
Obtaining Qualifications (ii)
Apprenticeships
“If it was just like work experience for these four
years, rather than getting a qualification or a
degree, I think I would have gone for a degree, just
to have something to fall back on. In case I didn’t
like [it] say then if I didn’t have any qualification I
wouldn’t be able to go into any other field so it
would be a lot more of a risk, I feel, if there wasn’t a
qualification at the end of it”
Tamsin, 18, Birmingham
…but not always!
“I don’t understand retail because retail say that
you need maths and English but with the
technology that we’ve got we don’t need to
know anything, like technically, because the cash
machine’ll sort everything out for you, so
technically you don’t need nothing”
Demi, 17, Birmingham
How work experience can work to restrict or
limit job and career opportunities
• By its absence
• By not being the ‘right kind’
• By conflicting with the aspirations to study
• By needing money to earn money
• By competitive pressures
A deficit of work experience; and the vicious
circle this can create
“I think it’s hard because no one wants to employ
someone’s who’s got no experience, then no one will
employ them to get the experience and then they can’t
get a job.”
Kema, female, 17, Leicester
[…] “but then a lot of jobs [are] asking for experience as
well, [but] you’re not give a man an opportunity to gain
experience, [so] how you supposed, how you supposed
to take on someone with experience? […] they ask for
experience but yet they don’t give no opportunity to
gain experience.”
Azmil, male, 19, Birmingham
A deficit of work experience; and feeling
excluded
“It’s like I don’t like writing my name, kind of thing because […] I don’t
want people to know I’m Muslim ‘cause of the discrimination of them
not giving me a job […] I don’t really want people to know, it’s like, it’s
not like I’m ashamed, it’s just that it’s gonna stop opportunities.”
Aaeesha, 17, female, Birmingham
“I went to [Public Sector service provider] and they said no either [as
well], so I was like “Okay, forget about work experience then!’ […] Like, I
wear a headscarf. And maybe my skin”. Ulyaa, female, 17, Coventry
[I will] “give an example, know one of my mates, yeah, […] He’s got a
beard, he’s a holy person. He’s got a beard and everything, yeah. He
applied for a job [at a high street chain], I applied for the job yeah, I’ve
got the job straightaway [… but] they phoned him ‘ah we’ve got no
vacancies’ and by then other people have phoned in and getting jobs.
That’s racism”. Azim, male, 19, Birmingham
Problems in finding the ‘right kind’: and what
this might say to employers
“[…] I never put any of mine [short term agency jobs] on
my CV, I only put like the main ones … Yeah, the main
ones that you need.”
Dora, female, 19, Coventry
[…] “if an employer looks at your CV and they see loads of
things like, even if it’s agency and stuff, they’re going to
look at that and they think, well you’ve had all these jobs
in this amount of time and they’re going to be like, well
obviously it just shows you’re not employable because
you’ve only been there for this amount of time.’’
Tanya, female, 21, Coventry
Problems in finding the ‘right kind’: to ‘live’ on or
make it worthwhile
“You can’t rely on a zero-hour contract, you can’t, how can you live off a
zero-hour contract? You don’t know what you’re earning, one month you’re
earning [£]500, the next month you’re earning £20. How can you live off
that? You can’t and you can’t rely on those sort. What we need, what we
need is jobs that are, like proper contracts.”
Abahat, male, 18, Birmingham
“[…]
we’d get a phone call every morning, yeah, from, like whoever’s
working at the agency, and they’ll phone me and they’ll say, ‘are you
available to work tonight?’ […] and they used to say pass the
message on to your mates as well […] there used to be three other
agencies as well […] so that altogether […] there’s about 80 people
there .[…] the managers would come up, who are working the
sections and they’ll say okay […] ‘We only need 70 people tonight’,
and then with the other 10 people they used to say to them, ‘Go
home.”
.
Mo, male, 19, Birmingham
‘
Combining work experience with study
“[…] you’ve gotta make it clear the days and hours you
can do, so say on a Monday I can only work after 4 o’clock
and anything from 4 onwards, Tuesday all day, like you
have to make it clear ‘cause if they want you to come in
on Monday at 12, then you’ve gotta think work or
college.”
Lottie, female, 17, Leicester
“[high street retailer], yeah, there were terrible, yeah, so
you got zero contract hours. Even if you said you’re at
college they’d ring you at 6 in the morning saying, ‘we
need you to work at 9 [am]’, then sometimes you don’t,
don’t want the shift, sometimes you don’t have any shifts
in the week.”
Yaw, male, 18, Coventry
Work experience requires having money
“I think it was more, yeah, more the location [of his unpaid work
experience] really, and obviously to get there you’d have to have
money, even if you were getting a bus you need money, you
know, you’ve got to have money at the end of the day, you know,
you can only volunteer for a short period of time before the
realism of life gets in the way and that’s a fact, unfortunately”.
Sean, male, 19, Coventry
“Every month, every day I was travelling up and down, up and
down, going to different stores [to provide security] and know
what I mean, that’s how much graft I put in. I mean in a week I
probably spent silly money in taxis and buses to get to work […]
but until you get a permanent site but because of the zero-hours
contract, nothing’s promised, nothing’s promised”.
Azmil, male, 19, Birmingham
These assessments are the product of effort: trying
and often failing. Too many young people …
“[…] a few of my friends are managers there
[supermarket] and […] they get loads of CVs and […] most
of them just get thrown away, straight away they don’t
even look at them […] because they’re getting loads of
applications all the time”.
Luther, male, 17, Birmingham
“Well, when you apply for a job there’s always gonna be
someone that’s got a better qualification than you have,
and they’re gonna want them over you, so you’re not
really given much of a chance.”
Joe, Leicester, male, 18
… chasing too few opportunities
“There’s a lot of people that would want to
work, want to graft but you’re not giving them
the opportunity to graft, how they supposed to
graft? And put in work. There’s not opportunities
to show that you’re willing to like graft, yeah.
You get me?”
Stacey, 17, female, Leicester
Progression
• Progression within a job vs progression
between jobs
– Insight into organisation/role
– Building a CV
• Apprenticeships – leading to progression?
– Public (City Councils, NHS)
– Private sector
• Agency, short term temporary jobs – dead
ends?
Progression
• Progression within a job vs progression
between jobs
– Insight into organisation/role
– Building a CV
• Apprenticeships – leading to progression?
– Public (City Councils, NHS)
– Private sector
• Agency, short term temporary jobs – dead
ends?
Progression
• Progression within a job vs progression
between jobs
– Insight into organisation/role
– Building a CV
• Apprenticeships – leading to progression?
– Public (City Councils, NHS)
– Private sector
• Agency, short term temporary jobs – dead
ends?
Susan, 19
•
•
•
•
•
Lived independently since 15
Did A levels
Worked part time along college (Arts)
Volunteering activity for young people
College tutor, and advisors provided
support, information and guidance
• Signed on
• Apprenticeship level 3 at City Council
• Apprenticeship level 4 opportunity
I don’t [want] just a job, I want a career’
Robert, 21
• Lives in shared accommodation
• Low educational attainment
• Worked in zero hour contracts (construction,
catering, sales)
• Many short term employment experiences
• Signed on and off (long term unemployment
spells)
• Apprenticeship level 2
• Dyslexia
• Currently unemployed (JSA)
‘[Employers/Agencies] can promise you the
world but they don’t actually deliver on their
promises’
Project 3: Midlands graduates’
pathways into employment
Emerging findings……
Kate Purcell, Charoula Tzanakou and Gaby Atfield
Key findings
• Graduates had undertaken a wide range of paid and
unpaid work and work experience placements before,
during and after graduation and most had experience of
precarious employment.
• Almost all work experience before, during and
immediately after HE study has positive impacts on career
opportunities…but some work experience was more
valuable than others.
• Information about opportunities and access to them
varies substantially among the graduate population.
• Some sectors and occupations are harder to access than
others.
• Increase in self employment and aspirations to be selfemployed, compared to earlier graduate cohorts.
• Polarization of opportunities and outcomes within the
graduate labour market?
How work experience works to enhance career
opportunities: some examples
• …by leading directly to sustainable
employment;
• …by leading indirectly to employment (skills
development, evidence of ‘employability
skills’, access to information and guidance,
‘insider information’, references…;
• ..by helping to clarify options, skills and
preferences and shaping career directions.
Leading directly to sustainable employment
“I think, I mean I wouldn’t have gotten the [Name of
Company] job without having done volunteering work
for them […]At that time, that job was essentially
created for me.”
Alexandra, biological sciences, studied and worked in Midlands
”I spoke to the director who had hired me [for the
sandwich placement] and she wanted to offer me a job
but I had already told her that I didn’t want to.”
Neal, technical project manager, engineering, studied and
worked in Midlands
Leading indirectly to employment
“that [unpaid work as assistant clinical psychologist] was my first experience
of being in a NHS setting so understanding… the meeting structures, booking
appointments on clinical systems that they use[…] I was able to use when
when I did have my interview for [current job in NHS]”
Adina, Employment Lead in Healthcare Unit, Psychology, applied, studied and worked in
Midlands
“main thing was just that I had lots of work experience. I’d been used to
working in different, all kind of people both voluntary and paid experience
and I’d got .. just much more relevant experience than other people […] Yeah,
definitely, I honestly, hand on heart, don’t think I would have got the jobs
that I have now if I hadn’t have done it [work experience(s)]. Like, I think it’s
given me much more than just the experience, it’s given me a lot of the
things that I developed when I was doing those…. things like social skills, and
self-confidence and the ability to speak to people and present and do those
types of things - and those are things that I never got from school”.
Kate, psychological well being practitioner, social studies and social work,applied, studied and
worked in Midlands
Helping to clarify options
“I was really glad that I did nine months and got a good insight
into the kind of business and realised that I wanted to work for a
big international company but I didn’t want to do accountancy or
audit […] and I sort of realised that it probably didn’t quite fit my
skill set, or my interest.”
Adrian, Senior Underwriter, Economics and French, studied and worked in
Midlands
“I think they [unpaid work experiences] definitely helped me
identify the things that I enjoy doing and the things that I was
naturally good at […] they’ve kind of influenced my choices.”
Adina, Psychology, applied, studied and worked in Midlands
Stepping Stones to cumulative career advantage
“I mean, the degree that I did helped me, has enabled me to work
in engineering which I enjoy, so designing things and that kind of
stuff, and then that led me to the internship which was
interesting and then, get onto the exchange programme which I
enjoyed and the company here which is also part of [the latter]”.
Neal, technical project manager, engineering, studied and worked in
Midlands
Michael in Pharmacy: 1st unpaid community pharmacy [holiday
work before university, then paid in subsequent summer], 1st
unpaid hospital pharmacy placement student, 2nd paid hospital
pharmacy, - paid sandwich year internships hospital and in
industry, then paid pre-registration industrial internship – finally,
PhD scholarship.
Michael, now completing PhD, Pharmacy, applied and studied
and worked in Midlands
Some examples of how work experience can
also restrict opportunities
• It amplifies existing inequalities:
– of information and ‘cultural capital’
– In access to mentors and useful networks
– Of access to social and economic support
– Of mobility and location
Restriction of job access opportunities and
amplifying existing inequalities
• Importance of information and ‘cultural
capital’
• Importance of access to mentors and useful
networks
• Importance of access to social and
economic support
• Importance of mobility and location
Importance of information & cultural capital:
“I don’t think I received good enough careers
advice prior. Obviously I did my degree thinking
that I would be able to do things and then when I
graduated I found out that I couldn’t go down that
route, for example, with the children’s mental
health. I thought doing the degree in itself was
enough, they hadn’t advised that you’d then have
to work in that area for two years”
Kate, Psychological well-being practitioner, social studies and social
work, Applied from, studied in and worked in Midlands
Importance of access to mentors & useful networks:
“I wrote them a letter, an email and they
ignored me so then my dad happened to be
at a conference where one of the members of
the board was speaking and he went up to
them and complained that they’d ignored my
email”
Max, Chief Marketing Officer, International Relations and
Russian, Applied from and studied in the Midlands
Importance of economic and social support
‘Working for free’ and ‘paying to work’
– Role of family as a support network
determining access to the most useful types of
work experience
– Decision-making as an individual and as part of
a family / wider network
The geography of opportunity
– Sectoral differences
– Role of family as an anchor, limiting mobility
Economic support
“I didn’t manage to keep my toe with, with archaeology or
anything heritage related when I was working as a van driver.
Even though it was only part-time, finding the time around that
to do something else always seems really difficult [...] I don’t
have enough money to be able to just go where the work is at
the moment really”
Logan, Heritage, Archaeology, Applied from, studied in and worked in the Midlands
“A lot of my friends were moving back home and then able to get
experience that way, by relying on their parents, whereas that
was something I wasn’t comfortable to do which meant that
maybe I wasn’t able to pursue my perfect career. That’s not to
say I’m not happy doing what I’m doing...”
Beth, Events Manager, Biological Sciences, Applied from, studied in and worked in the Midlands
Mobility and location
“I found [the charity sector] was so London centric, if
you wanted to do any kind of internship, you would
maybe get expenses but you’d need to be able to rely
on someone to live, you know?”
Beth, Events Manager, Biological Sciences, Applied from, studied in and
worked in the Midlands
“I’ve got my family here, things like that, my mum’s
disabled so I like to be around her. She’d kill me if she
knew I was staying around for her but I don’t want to
be moving too far away, she needs help with things
sometimes”
Logan, Heritage worker, Archaeology, Applied from, studied in and worked in
the Midlands
Increased self-employment among graduates
• Evidence of changing approaches to career
development and work/life balance?
• New forms of work, facilitated by ICT?
• Result of greater precarity or increased enterprise
and interest in self-determination?
Why do you want to set up your own business?
“ I think for me it’s, it’s a control thing.. being in this industry, you only have so
much influence. I can work with different clients and suggest things, but
sometimes when they’re dead set on having something that isn’t necessarily
gonna work, or they want to take control and write things for you, even
though you’re the professional writer, that is something that I do find quite
difficult and I find quite stressful - whereas I think if I expand my writing
portfolio sort of to be able to write expertly, for all sorts of different platforms,
having the ability to actually choose the clients that I want to work with and
develop stronger relationships with fewer people, I think it would just make it
a little bit more satisfying for me….
…and I see friends and people that I know, have taken the leap and are
making it work and making money from it and they’re just enjoying a better
quality of life than doing a nine to five slog, and I think that, that’s kind of
what appeals to me… I’d like to take risks and do something different and be
able to have a more fulfilling career.”
Julie, Creative Sponsorship and Promotions Account Manager, Regional radio
company, degree in Mass Communication and Documentation, Midlands born
and bred, studied in Midlands.
“What do you hope to be doing in five years’ time?”
“Running my own company, in what sector I’m not one hundred per cent
certain but I like I’d hope the company had received its first financing and that
we had a business plan and a market strategy and we were starting to take
on our first employees and the company was strong …”
Interviewer
“So what sector doesn’t matter, that’s quite interesting - you must have an
idea of what this organisation would look like and what kind of clients it
would have and what kind of services it would be providing?”
“Not
necessarily. I’m currently with a partner starting a small project in
Brussels but it’s a small one that we may get some financing for, and that’s in
the policy analysis sector [but]..the sector honestly doesn’t matter so much; I
considered offers from people I know, to do something in the IT sector and I
mean, it’s got to be interesting to me, obviously, and it’s also got to be sort of
morally acceptable and I wouldn’t work in arms …or gambling or something.
beyond that I’m quite open-minded, it depends what I’m doing at the time
and where I think the best opportunities are”.
Max, Chief Marketing Officer, Multinational Manufacturing organisation, studied International
Relations and Russian, studied in the Midlands
Other key findings that we will be exploring
• Careers are not individual decisions (importance
of partnerships, family).
• Internships – why organisations offer them and
whether they lead to employment.
• The role of employment agencies viz grad
careers.
• The range of graduate experiences and
outcomes and the importance of networks,
contacts and access to information: graduate
labour market polarisation?
• The crucial importance of proactivity.
• The implications of graduate opportunities (and
lack of them) for the Midlands in the future.
Putting the evidence from Projects 2 and 3
together…
• Work experience important for both, for similar
reasons, but contacts/networks/access to guidance
very different for Projects 2 and 3
• The impact of peer and reference groups and
experience on awareness of, access to and attitudes
towards opportunities and employment.
• The importance of self confidence and the capacity for
proactivity.
• The need to address social and economic disadvantage
more effectively to combat youth labour market
polarisation.
Proactivity for creating work experience
“More places are formalising [work experience]
though, and in a way that makes it harder, so in my
case, I applied for placements that didn’t exist because
nobody was normally asking the people I asked, they’re
actually ‘yeah.. free pair of hands for a few weeks
would be quite nice’, whereas if it’s an advertised
placement then you’re competing against a lot of
people”.
[Alexandra]???
When employers want you to have 10 years
of experience before the age of 22
Project 4: Employers’ Perspectives
Professor Melanie Simms (University of Leicester)
ms745@leicester.ac.uk
Professor David Wilson (The Open University)
David.Wilson1@open.ac.uk
Employer perspectives
– Advantages and disadvantages of using different forms of
labour (work placement, internships, paid, unpaid etc.)
• Not assuming that this is simply the stereotypical perspective of
exploitative capitalism. This is a testable proposition which, to our
knowledge, has not yet been addressed by formal research.
– How do employers view the transition from education to
employment?
• What schemes are in place such as internships, placements,
apprenticeships and how effective do employers see these as
being in the transition into more full-term employment?
• Where employers operate multiple schemes (e.g. apprenticeships
and unpaid placements), which do they see as more effective and
why?
Key Research Questions
• Does work experience per se, or only certain types of work experience, or
work experience undertaken in some contexts, increase young people’s
access to employment opportunities?
• Under what circumstances does part-time and temporary employment
lead to full-time jobs and career opportunities?
• Where work experience is an informal arrangement, unpaid or otherwise
organised outside the labour market, how and why are decisions made by
employers to provide these opportunities?
•
Who accesses them, who benefits from them and who is placed at a
disadvantage?
• Do we need to re-think management and employment theories which
have had a long history in management theory?
Data Collection
•
6 case studies of different size employers – organisations identified largely from
projects 2 and 3 to aid integration across the projects.
•
Interviews - supplemented by an exploration of the nature of work, job design, and
managerial systems operating in the workplace in order to build a view of the
wider context of employment and management
•
Local and sectoral labour market dynamics also explored to set the context.
•
Links here to project 1. A key question will be to what extent sectors have
changed or remain similar for young job seekers and unpaid work.
•
Finally, this project aims to examine a large case study in which all four projects
can have a voice and make a contribution. Currently looking at a professional
services organization, but final choice will depend on in-depth access being
granted.
Pilot Studies
• 3 initial interviews (one manufacturing; one
service organisation, one health) with more
planned as the project gathers momentum.
• Initial data indicate:
– Unpaid workers often difficult to manage, especially in
services.
– Private employment agencies taking a larger role in
placing unpaid work in public sector organisations.
– Significant decrease in favouring graduates in
preference to home-grown non-graduates who can be
trained and socialised on the job.
Thank you for your attention.
Contact us:
Paths2Work@warwick.ac.uk
www.warwick.ac.uk/paths2work
@Paths2Work