In the UK, it takes young people with lower secondary qualifications 1 month longer to find employment of any sort and 7 months longer to find secure, full-time employment if they are located in a place of low labour demand. These findings point to the need for greater policy focus on bridging spatial mismatch between the location of low qualified young people and the location of secure employment opportunities, for example by brokering connections between employers and young people in disadvantaged areas and offering transport subsidies and mobility or relocation vouchers.
An individual's transition from compulsory education to the world of work is a critical life transition that has long-term consequences, particularly for married life, family formation and mental and physical health. Katy Morris, from the University of Lausanne, is assessing how local job demand affects individual chances of gaining a foothold in the labour market in England. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 1991-2008, she analyses two different aspects of local opportunity structures:
- the level of employer demand for labour, which affects the number of vacancies and the degree of competition.
- the type of demand for labour on the part of employers, which influences the availability of vacancies, which employers will generally fill with younger workers.
Morris observes that young graduates of lower secondary education take on average one month longer to find a job of any kind, and seven months longer to find a secure full-time job if they are in a place where demand for labour is low. In fact, in regions where demand for labour is high, entry into the labour market is rapid, whatever the qualifications of the candidates. However, in low-demand markets, people with only a lower secondary qualification take 1.5 to 2.5 months longer to find their first job, and even 5 to 12 months longer for a stable job. For graduates of upper secondary or tertiary education, the transition times remain unchanged. Variations in the level of demand appear to have a greater impact on new entrants to the labour market than variations in the type of demand.
Katy Morris's research makes two important contributions. Firstly, she shows that the risk of prolonged labour market transitions is concentrated among low-skilled young people who are also in places where demand for labour is low. Secondly, it indicates that, in these cases, the greatest risk is the insecurity arising from this unstable situation rather than unemployment. Indeed, people in areas of low labour demand are more likely to start out on part-time or short-term contracts and find it much more difficult to find full-time employment. These results, which highlight the contextual nature of the risk associated with a low level of education, reinforce calls for researchers and policy-makers to recognise that individual and institutional aspects are not the only determinants of young people's integration into the labour market.
These findings highlight the need for greater policy attention to address the spatial mismatch between the location of low-skilled young people and that of secure employment opportunities, for example by facilitating contacts between employers and young people in disadvantaged areas and by offering transport subsidies and mobility or relocation vouchers. Furthermore, although Switzerland has stronger institutional links than England, its youth unemployment rates vary considerably, suggesting that the conditional risk model identified by the researcher could be observed in other countries.
Full article
- Katy Morris (2023) Getting a foot in the door: local labour markets and the school-to-work transition, Journal of Youth Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2023.2248905