It is fair to say that youth in the UK aren’t exactly having the best of times when it comes to work. However this doesn’t mean they are down and out, oh no no no. Face’s recent Tech Tribe survey has revealed that even though work may not be easy to come by, young people are still up for it and their attitude towards work cannot be questioned. Yesterdays post on Vice magazine’s ad agency Virtue is a great example of how young people are making a postive impact and changing the work environments around them.
So how exactly do the young folk in the UK feel about work?
Allow Tech Tribe to explain…
They know they have to work hard to be successful
Who’d be a young person these days? Youth unemployment is at a 14 year high, standing at 2.47 million. Many go to university, partly to remove themselves from a hellishly difficult job market, but also to gain a crucial qualification to make them more competitive. But students have long been seen as wasters, who indulge themselves with lie-ins and Mickey Mouse courses.
When they do go out into the working world, stories abound of their parents ringing HR departments on behalf of their little cherubs. But we found young people to be much more grounded than all that. 39% ‘agree’ that ‘you have to work hard to be successful’. But more impressive, a further 51% ‘agree strongly’. However they define success, they believe that there’s no short cut. Whereas perhaps a few years ago there was an idea that you could go on Big Brother and then you were set. But 46% of 19-25 year-olds ‘disagree’ and a further 20% ‘disagree strongly’ that fame is ‘easy to achieve and desirable’. They’ve seen enough cycles of celebrity boom and bust to know that it’s an unrealistic view. It shows they have a grounded and realistic view when it comes to making it.
They want more than one career in their working lives
Which is good, because that’s definitely what they’re going to have. Long gone is the concept of a job for life, except perhaps in a handful of professions like the civil service, and now you have ‘short term contracts’, ‘churn’ and ‘rightsizing’ ringing in your ears. Here in the UK, employees change jobs quicker than the rest of Europe (where flexible labour laws make it easier to hire and fire). There are of course some advantages for employees in a more fluid labour market. And it looks like young people have adjusted to this reality pretty enthusiastically. 36% of 19-25 year-olds ‘agree’, and a further 13% ‘agree strongly’ that they ‘want more than one career in their lives’.
Just 18% ‘disagree’ and only ‘3% disagree strongly’. This difference in strong opinion – whilst admittedly not overwhelming – does at least point to an emphatic favourability toward the economic ebb and flow of the modern world. It seems that they’re not just putting up with the status quo, but actively in favour of it. Perhaps they also look at the older generations and want a life with more variety than their parents and grandparents.
They want to be their own boss
In the past few years there’s been a huge growth in the profile of business and entrepreneurialism. TV shows like Dragons’ Den, The Last Millionaire, The Apprentice and Secret Millionaire have captured the imagination of many young people and introduced them to talk of ‘proof of concept’, ‘margins’, ‘growth’, and dreams of turning something in your head into something on shop shelves.
“Business is the new rock ‘n’ roll” - so says serial entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den veteran, Peter Jones. Not if you’re working for someone else’s though! We can report that today’s 19-25 year-olds have a keen interest in being their bosses. 51% want to strike out on their own at some point. 22-25 year-olds were more emphatic with 23% ‘agreeing strongly’, compared to 19-25 year-olds (18%). This difference may be attributable to the older ones having had a bit more real world work experience: knowing the realities of work increases the desire to get away from authority and do their own thing. Along with their desire for variety in their working lives, they also look for autonomy, self-determination and the opportunity to take on responsibility for their own careers.
