Employment barriers preventing young Black, Asian and Mixed heritage people from accessing fair and equitable employment opportunities were brought into sharp focus at Action for Race Equality (ARE)’s inaugural national youth employment conference yesterday (February 22nd 2024).
Over 70 people, including policymakers, employers, representatives from further and higher education institutions, minority-led employability providers and young people aged 16 – 24 came together to explore the ingrained race disparities within employment and solutions to over come these issues.
Employers, Employers, Employers – let them be more radical in how they recruit young people.
Tony Hyland MBE , Department of Work and Pensions
Supported by the Youth Futures Foundation, the national What Works Centre for youth employment, the ARE conference heard from a variety of key note speakers including YFF’s Chief Executive Barry Fletcher, Sandra Kerr CBE, the Director of Race at Business in the Community, as well as representatives from the Department of Work and Pensions and a series of leaders across the industry.
The call for reform was clear: institutional racism, biases and systemic policies that put a glass ceiling on talented young Black, Asian and Mixed heritage people have no place in modern Britain.
The conference coincided with the release of the latest government data on youth employment showing a stark growth of in the number of young people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). There are now 851,000 young people who are NEET, a number that has grown by about 50,000 on the last year.
Despite the ever growing number of NEET young people, there are vacancies – but as attendees heard at the Youth Employment Conference, these jobs are often inaccessible for young ethnic minority people.
Axce Sellathurai, an ARE Youth Action Network ambassador, explained that educational institutions have a responsibility to end these barriers: “The pathway from education to careers for young people is currently one that is deeply flawed and requires desperate attention. We are the future, and it is imperative that we are invested in to ensure that the instabilities and barriers preventing us from flourishing are eradicated.”
The barriers also exist within the work place, Mohammed Jalloh, ARE’s Moving on Up Ambassador, explained:
Code-switching affects many of young people like me. Changing yourself so you can fit the culture of the workplace is one of the worst things you could possibly face, as you are no longer being yourself.
Mohammed Jalloh, Moving on Up Ambassador
For far too long, young Black, Asian, and mixed heritage people have had to overcome deeply embedded racist policies and procedures to succeed in the workplace. The government, employers, and educational institutions have a responsibility to break down these systemic barriers and urgently need to make a joint commitment to ending the stark disparities in employment opportunities that exist for these young people.
The Youth Employment Conference was an important forum to discuss practical solutions that can be taken collaboratively to overcome these barriers and open up opportunities to all young people.
If you want to find out more about the practical solutions, ARE has published information to help employers and young people alike. Find our Positive Action Guide for London’s Chief Executives, Inclusive Employers Toolkit, and our Interview preparation guide here.