Lockdown has 'negatively impacted young people's labour market outcomes'

21 Jul 2020

The coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown has negatively affected young people's labour market outcomes, according to a report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The report, which was funded by the Turing Institute, found that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to 'severely disrupt' young workers' career progression. It also suggested that the economic impacts of the pandemic on young workers may last well beyond the easing of the lockdown.

The report revealed that over the last decade, young people starting out in the labour market have increasingly been working in low paid occupations, including sectors hardest hit by COVID-19.

The IFS has called for the government to focus on the challenges facing the young in regard to finding work following the lockdown.

'Even a normal recession can be especially damaging for young workers as, for example, hiring freezes disproportionately affect those coming into the labour market and those who would otherwise be climbing the jobs ladder,' said Agnes Norris Keller, Research Economist at the IFS.

'The recession associated with the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to be doubly bad for early-career workers because the particular sectors being hardest hit are very disproportionately likely to employ them.'