The latest study from the Office of National Statistics revealed that younger people were hit hard by the pandemic, and early in the crisis, employment among 16-24-year-olds fell faster than for any other age group.
According to the data from ONS, overall in 2020, the employment rate among those aged 16-24 fell 2.6 percentage points to 51.9%, while unemployment rose 2.3 percentage points to 14.4%.
Younger people with part time jobs were more likely to lose work with the proportion of part-time employed young people falling 3.5 percentage points to 35.6%.
Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown said on the issue on Tuesday: “Working teens and their families are some of the forgotten financial victims of the pandemic. New analysis from the ONS shows that young people bore the brunt of job losses early in the pandemic, and that working teens will bear the scars in the years to come.
“The impact on workers under the age of 25 has been horrible, particularly those working in consumer-facing jobs in shops, hotels, restaurants and bars, which were hit so hard by lockdowns and social distancing rules. Many of them were on zero-hours contracts or working part-time at the busiest times of the week, which made them particularly vulnerable.”
The number of young people working in accommodation and food services who moved into unemployment or inactivity jumped by 50% during the pandemic.
In the long term, these youths affected by the pandemic will end up gaining their financial independence later, added Coles.
They will also have less experience of the workplace and they will lose the opportunity to build up their work experience while they’re young.
Families supporting these teens will also suffer the consequences of the pandemic, as they will have to finance students living away from home that are unable to work part time.
The ONS data showed that young people who gave “student” as their reason for being economically inactive were up by 5.0% in the third quarter of 2020 and by 6.2% in the fourth quarter when compared to a year earlier.
