As part of International Youth Day – Coca Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) discusses the role of youth work and support from businesses when it comes to helping young people overcome barriers to employment.

Their view is that every young person should have the potential to thrive – no matter their background or experiences.

They recognise they have a responsibility as an employer to equip young people with the tools and resources that would enable them to thrive. In my view, giving back to the community isn’t just about providing financial support; we have other resources we can leverage to help make a difference.

They talk about their work with UK Youth in identifying the barriers to employment many young people face today and designing a programme of work to help young people overcome those obstacles, empowering them with the skills, confidence, and experience to feel workplace ready.

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Compass Group UK & Ireland has launched the Social Partner Hub which will support candidates from a range of backgrounds who are facing barriers to entry into the job market. These include ex-offenders, care leavers, long term unemployed and people with disabilities.

The platform is being launched as part of Compass’ Mission to a Million commitment, which will provide support to one million people by 2030 through jobs, training, community engagement and development.

In recent years, Compass has already provided hundreds of work placements and jobs across the UK, for those who have traditionally found it difficult to find work and aims to significantly increase this through this new tailored recruitment process. Working with a range of partner organisations, the platform will match candidates with job opportunities and internships available at Compass.

The career hub will help to provide support for people struggling to access work, ensuring that the hiring process is inclusive and caters to the needs of each applicant. Compass hiring managers will also undertake training to better understand some of the challenges faced by different candidates, help identify roles that may be suitable and the support the individual will require to ensure everything is done to ensure the job or work placement is a success.

 

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This year’s Lifelong Learning week will run from Monday 6th to Friday 10th November.

The purpose is to:

 Raise the profile of lifelong learning
 Celebrate and champion adult learners and adult learning providers
 Drive a shared focus among policymakers, providers, and other key stakeholders on increasing opportunities for lifelong learning

This year’s themes will include:

 Learning for Career Change
 Learning for Creativity and Culture
 Learning for Health
 Learning for Life
 Learning for the Future

You can register on the link below for further details.

https://bit.ly/45Nak3L 

The cost of living increased sharply across the UK during 2021 and 2022. The annual rate of inflation reached 11.1% in October 2022, a 41-year high, before easing in subsequent months. It was 6.8% in July 2023. High inflation affects the affordability of goods and services for households.

The inflation rate is falling but remains high, and it is expected to fall in 2023. Consumer goods and energy prices pushed inflation higher.

 

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This publication updates the attached apprenticeships and traineeships statistics to include the latest monthly transparency data on apprenticeship starts, reported to date.

This data now covers August 2022 to May 2023.
Note – applies to England only

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Businesses, education providers and organisations can use this list to find the local skills improvement plan(LSIP) for their area and the designated employer representative body (ERB) responsible for leading its development and review.

Each LSIP sets out the changes needed in a local area to make technical education or training more responsive to employer and local labour market needs.

Note – applies to England only.

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Employers are increasingly using AI in recruitment and management. This briefing explores the employment law implications and proposals for regulatory reform.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a term which can encompass a wide variety of technologies, many of which are increasingly used in workplace management. The use of these technologies, while offering much potential,
has also proved controversial and raised some important legal questions.
Algorithmic management refers to the use of AI or other algorithmic tools by employers to manage workers.

Over recent years algorithmic management and the use of AI tools have become more widespread across many sectors of the UK.

Their use has been noted in three broad areas:

• In recruitment, to devise job adverts, source candidates and filter CVs. Some recruiters also use automatically scored tests as part of their recruitment process
• In task allocation and performance management, including scheduling shifts and evaluating worker performance.
• In surveillance and monitoring of the workforce, tracking workers to monitor productivity or health and safety in the workplace.

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination by employers on the grounds of any protected characteristics, such as age, sex or race.

It is widely accepted that AI tools can exhibit biases because of the ways in which they are trained; this may make the use of some AI tools that make or influence workplace decisions unlawful, unless care is taken to minimise such biases.

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New youth centres will be built, and old ones refurbished to give young people better access to positive out-of-school activities as part of the next phase of the Youth Investment Fund. The plans for youth centres announced earlier this week will mean young people can take part in activities such as dance, theatre, sport, music, and art sessions as well as vital skills and employment training.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer sets out her vision for the youth sector, that every young person should have “someone to talk to, something to do, somewhere to go.”

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The Government have announced two consultation’s seeking views on proposals aimed at increasing employer use of Occupational Health Services.

Tackling economic inactivity due to long-term sickness is a top priority for the government. Increasing labour force participation supports the Prime Minister’s priorities of halving inflation and growing the economy.

The Chancellor announced £2 billion at the Spring Budget 2023 to support disabled people and people with health conditions to work. This included a package of two consultations.

Working better – is seeking views on proposals aimed at increasing employer use of occupational health services and
Tax incentives for Occupational Health is aimed at employers and exploring the role of tax incentives in boosting occupational health provision by employers.

 

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A new report by the YMCA explores the impact of the benefits system on young people living in supported accommodation and their ability to work.

Please click here to access the full report.

YMCA firmly believes that everyone should have a fair chance to discover who they are and what they can become.

Key findings include:

• Supported accommodation residents are often financially penalised for undertaking paid work
• Benefits are too low to live on, especially for the under 25s
• Mental health is still one of the biggest challenges for supported accommodation residents
•  Benefit sanctions are not suitable for supported accommodation residents and do not have the desired outcome of encouraging people into work
• Jobcentre staff need to build relationships of understanding and trust in order to help young people move into work

The report goes into the recommendations for all the above findings.