Latest news with #youthemployment
The Herald
a day ago
- Automotive
- The Herald
Volkswagen welcomes 540 young trainees through YES programme
Volkswagen Group Africa (VWGA) has announced an intake of 540 young unemployed graduates for its 2025 Youth Unemployment Services (YES) programme. The YES programme was initiated by the government in 2019 to alleviate youth unemployment. The company said 296 trainees will work for VWGA: 232 at will be stationed at Kariega in Gqeberha, where the company assembles the VW Polo and Polo Vivo models; 62 are headed to its Gauteng headquarters in Sandton; and two will be absorbed at the company's satellite parts warehouse in the Western Cape. Another 244 trainees will be deployed with external partners in October. This intake brings the total of YES trainees who have benefited from VWGA's involvement in the programme to 3,650. 'We know today's youth will be tomorrow's leaders, but we also believe in playing an active role in developing those leaders and innovators,' said Nonkqubela Maliza, VWGA's corporate and government affairs director. 'Through our participation in the YES programme, we want to offer youth the space to become economically active and gain invaluable skills on which they can build successful and fulfilling careers.' Since its inception, VWGA has supported the initiative by providing employment opportunities and work experience for youth at its sites, in addition to opportunities in the dealer network and SME partners. TimesLIVE
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
India's unemployment rate rises to 5.6% in May as farm jobs decline post-harvest
By Manoj Kumar NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's unemployment rate rose to 5.6% in May from 5.1% in April, partly due to a drop in farm activity after the end of the harvest season, the statistics ministry said on Monday. This was the second monthly release of India's labour force data covering both urban and rural areas. Previously, the government published employment data on a quarterly basis for urban regions and annually for both urban and rural areas. Asia's third largest economy, which expanded 7.4% year-on-year in the January-March quarter, is expected to grow 6.5% in the current fiscal year beginning April - broadly in line with the previous year's pace. The female unemployment rate stood slightly higher at 5.8% in May, compared to 5.6% for males, the data showed. Unemployment rate among urban youth aged 15 to 29 years rose to 17.9% in May from 17.2% in April, while in rural areas, the youth jobless rate increased to 13.7% from 12.3% over the same period. In rural regions, employment shifted away from agriculture to manufacturing and services as the share of workers in the farm sector fell to 43.5% in May from 45.9% in April, largely due to a post-harvest decline in agricultural activity. The decline in farm activity also impacted work opportunities for women in rural areas, with the labour force participation rate among women falling to 27.8% in May from 28.8% in April, the data showed. India's manufacturing growth slowed to a three-month low in May as demand softened amid price pressures and geopolitical tensions, a survey showed earlier this month. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Young carer who unwittingly breached allowance rules forced to repay £2,000
A young carer who had looked after her disabled mother from the age of eight was forced to repay more than £2,000 when she unwittingly breached carer's allowance benefit earnings rules after joining a government youth employment scheme. Rose Jones, 22, said she was twice wrongly advised by her jobcentre work coach that her wages earned under the Kickstart scheme would not affect her eligibility for carer's allowance. Less than a year after she completed the six-month scheme, under which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paid her wages, she received a demand from the DWP demanding she pay back £2,145 of overpaid benefits. 'I was shocked when the letter arrived – it came on my 20th birthday – and I really didn't know what to do. I thought it was a mistake because my work coach had told me it was fine. It was a really scary letter to receive,' Jones said. The case is the latest in a stream of carer's allowance injustices highlighted by a year- long Guardian investigation and a relatively rare case involving a young carer – most unpaid carers are much older adults. At least 144,000 UK carers are repaying more than £250m in earnings-related carer's allowance overpayments caused by what MPs said were 'human mistakes' on the part of carers and repeated DWP administrative and policy failures. Thousands of carers have been prosecuted and millions of pounds of public money wasted. The government last year vowed to reform aspects of carer's allowance after widespread public outrage. It commissioned an independent review of carer's allowance overpayments which is expected to report to ministers in July. Jones began caring for her mother, who has physical and mental disabilities, at the age of eight, helping around the house and with shopping, looking out for her safety, and accompanying her to hospital appointments. Being a carer affected her childhood and education, she said: 'I was always quite hesitant to be away from my mum. I'd worry about her all the time when I was at school and struggle to focus. I wouldn't want to go on sleepovers at friends' houses.' When she turned 16 she started to claim carer's allowance and it was only when she took up a place in 2021 on the DWP's Kickstart scheme aimed at young people at risk of long term unemployment, introduced during Covid in 2020, that it became an issue. Jones said: 'Before I'd accepted the job [though the Kickstart scheme] I told him [the job coach] I was on carer's allowance and I told him the exact amounts I'd be on and that I'd be working from home so I'd be doing the same amount of caring as always. 'He assured me that he was confident that my carer's allowance would not be affected. I asked him a couple of times, not just one phone call. I checked again after a couple of months once I had started earning my wage, and he reassured me, so I thought at this point everything was fine.' The demand, when it came, felt massively unjust. 'I'd been told by the work coach it was fine. I'd been a carer for my mum all my teenage years and felt my experiences had just been disregarded.' Under Kickstart, the DWP paid employers £1,500 a month towards wages and training costs, with participants guaranteed to be paid the equivalent of 25 hours a week at the national minimum wage. In Jones's case, this is £656 a month, which worked out for the purposes of the DWP's earnings rule calculation at £151 a week. Jones was taken on as a digital marketing assistant by a local firm and under carer's allowance rules was allowed to earn up to £128 a week on top of her carer duties, equivalent to 19.5 hours at the minimum wage for 18- to 20-year-olds. Because she had unwittingly breached the weekly earnings limit, carer's allowance rules meant she forfeited her £67.60 carer's allowance. This 'cliff edge' rule meant had she gone even £1 a week over the limit for six months she would have had to repay over £2,000. Related: 'Something has gone very wrong': how the carers scandal was exposed Jones said she was frustrated by different branches of the DWP – the jobcentre, the employment section and the carer's allowance unit – which did not seem to be clear on the rules and had not routinely shared information about her case. She was also shocked that the DWP had known about the earnings breach but had waited months before alerting her, allowing a debt to accrue that will take her years to repay. 'It's left me with a bit of distrust towards the DWP,' she said. Emily Holzhausen, the director of policy at Carers UK, said: 'It's devastating to see a young person who has had a more challenging start in life be badly let down by the DWP. 'It's not the first time that hard-pressed carers have been given the wrong information by people working for the DWP; the very people they trust to get the rules about benefits and entitlements right. 'The fact that the DWP's computer systems don't speak to each other have left many unpaid carers with unacceptable overpayments – despite the DWP having information that could have been used to stop them earlier.' A DWP spokesperson said: 'We understand the huge difference carers make as well as the struggles so many face. 'The carer's allowance overpayment rate is now the lowest on record and we are increasing funding and bringing in more staff to check 100% of alerts to help prevent carers falling into debt. 'But we want to go further, that's why we've launched an independent review of carer's allowance to explore how earnings-related overpayments have happened and what changes can be made.' • This article was amended on 15 June 2025. An earlier picture caption called Rose Jones Ruth. Owing to a miscalculation, it also said that she received £164 a week instead of £151 a week.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Young carer who unwittingly breached allowance rules forced to repay £2,000
A young carer who had looked after her disabled mother from the age of eight was forced to repay more than £2,000 when she unwittingly breached carer's allowance benefit earnings rules after joining a government youth employment scheme. Rose Jones, 22, said she was twice wrongly advised by her jobcentre work coach that her wages earned under the Kickstart scheme would not affect her eligibility for carer's allowance. Less than a year after she completed the six-month scheme, under which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paid her wages, she received a demand from the DWP demanding she pay back £2,145 of overpaid benefits. 'I was shocked when the letter arrived – it came on my 20th birthday – and I really didn't know what to do. I thought it was a mistake because my work coach had told me it was fine. It was a really scary letter to receive,' Jones said. The case is the latest in a stream of carer's allowance injustices highlighted by a year- long Guardian investigation and a relatively rare case involving a young carer – most unpaid carers are much older adults. At least 144,000 UK carers are repaying more than £250m in earnings-related carer's allowance overpayments caused by what MPs said were 'human mistakes' on the part of carers and repeated DWP administrative and policy failures. Thousands of carers have been prosecuted and millions of pounds of public money wasted. The government last year vowed to reform aspects of carer's allowance after widespread public outrage. It commissioned an independent review of carer's allowance overpayments which is expected to report to ministers in July. Jones began caring for her mother, who has physical and mental disabilities, at the age of eight, helping around the house and with shopping, looking out for her safety, and accompanying her to hospital appointments. Being a carer affected her childhood and education, she said: 'I was always quite hesitant to be away from my mum. I'd worry about her all the time when I was at school and struggle to focus. I wouldn't want to go on sleepovers at friends' houses.' When she turned 16 she started to claim carer's allowance and it was only when she took up a place in 2021 on the DWP's Kickstart scheme aimed at young people at risk of long term unemployment, introduced during Covid in 2020, that it became an issue. Jones said: 'Before I'd accepted the job [though the Kickstart scheme] I told him [the job coach] I was on carer's allowance and I told him the exact amounts I'd be on and that I'd be working from home so I'd be doing the same amount of caring as always. 'He assured me that he was confident that my carer's allowance would not be affected. I asked him a couple of times, not just one phone call. I checked again after a couple of months once I had started earning my wage, and he reassured me, so I thought at this point everything was fine.' The demand, when it came, felt massively unjust. 'I'd been told by the work coach it was fine. I'd been a carer for my mum all my teenage years and felt my experiences had just been disregarded.' Under Kickstart, the DWP paid employers £1,500 a month towards wages and training costs, with participants guaranteed to be paid the equivalent of 25 hours a week at the national minimum wage, in Jones's case £164 a week, or £656 a month. Jones was taken on as a digital marketing assistant by a local firm and under carer's allowance rules was allowed to earn up to £128 a week on top of her carer duties, equivalent to 19.5 hours at the minimum wage for 18- to 20-year-olds. Because she had unwittingly breached the weekly earnings limit, carer's allowance rules meant she forfeited her £67.60 carer's allowance. This 'cliff edge' rule meant had she gone even £1 a week over the limit for six months she would have had to repay over £2,000. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Jones said she was frustrated by different branches of the DWP – the jobcentre, the employment section and the carer's allowance unit – which did not seem to be clear on the rules and had not routinely shared information about her case. She was also shocked that the DWP had known about the earnings breach but had waited months before alerting her, allowing a debt to accrue that will take her years to repay. 'It's left me with a bit of distrust towards the DWP,' she said. Emily Holzhausen, the director of policy at Carers UK, said: 'It's devastating to see a young person who has had a more challenging start in life be badly let down by the DWP. 'It's not the first time that hard-pressed carers have been given the wrong information by people working for the DWP; the very people they trust to get the rules about benefits and entitlements right. 'The fact that the DWP's computer systems don't speak to each other have left many unpaid carers with unacceptable overpayments – despite the DWP having information that could have been used to stop them earlier.' A DWP spokesperson said: 'We understand the huge difference carers make as well as the struggles so many face. 'The carer's allowance overpayment rate is now the lowest on record and we are increasing funding and bringing in more staff to check 100% of alerts to help prevent carers falling into debt. 'But we want to go further, that's why we've launched an independent review of carer's allowance to explore how earnings-related overpayments have happened and what changes can be made.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The death of the summer job
This spring, Kate Miles wrapped up exams and embarked on a rite of passage familiar to many university students: applying for summer jobs. Hoping to land part-time work at a restaurant, the 19-year-old first-year psychology student completed the Smart Serve certification to work in licenced establishments. She applied online and in person for about 20 jobs in the Toronto area but didn't get any responses. 'My sister is eight years older than me and when she was in university, she would come home for the summers and work at Lone Star,' she said. 'I never saw her going through a challenge to find a summer job, and neither did any of my older cousins. It came as a bit of a shock to me.' Miles currently works as a tennis instructor, a job she's had for the past four summers. She enjoys it and the hourly pay is above minimum wage, but she's only working a few hours a week until registration picks up in July and August. 'It's been pretty discouraging,' she said of her job search. 'It's just so much effort and I'm not hearing back from any of them.' Miles is one of the thousands of young Canadians in their teens and early 20s trying to enter the seasonal job market to earn money, build skills, make connections and get a taste of life in the working world. But the days of covering the cost of tuition and living expenses with summer wages are long gone, and the rise of precarious gig work and more competition are causing a generational shift in the employment landscape where many students can't find a job at all. In 2024, the Canadian National Exhibition made headlines when 37,000 people registered for its job fair — more than double the previous year and more than seven times the 5,000 jobs available for the 18-day annual event. Over the past few years, viral videos showing massive lineups for job fairs at malls, retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores and fast food joints have abounded online. It's been pretty discouraging. It's just so much effort and I'm not hearing back from any of them Kate Miles, student searching a for summer job Canada's youth unemployment rate for those aged 15-24 was 14.2 per cent in May, according to Statistics Canada — double the national unemployment rate of seven per cent. For returning students (those who attended school full-time in March and intend to return to school full-time in the fall), the jobless rate reached 20.1 per cent, a level not seen since May 2009. It's shaping up to be a 'cool summer,' according to a seasonal jobs report by Indeed Hiring Lab released last month. The report showed summer job postings were down 22 per cent in Canada compared to a year ago. Postings for summer camp roles, 'typically the largest single category of summer job ads,' were down 32 per cent. Posts seeking painters, lifeguards, labourers, maintenance and customer service representatives also declined. The seasonal job market is unique, but it's also interconnected with what's happening in the broader job market and economy, said Brendon Bernard, senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. After a post-pandemic hiring surge that peaked in 2022 and was solid in 2023, the overall job market and summer hiring appetite cooled off in 2024 as employers face headwinds such as inflation and rising interest rates. Employees job-hop to advance their careers and land better, higher-paying work when the job market is strong, but they tend to stay in their existing roles when things slow down, creating a 'traffic jam' that leaves youth and people with less experience on the sidelines with fewer opportunities. 'What has stood out, though, is that while youth unemployment and unemployment of people over 25 have both trended up over the past two, two-and-a-half years, the youth unemployment rate has spiked more,' Bernard said. 'The deterioration has been faster and greater than we'd expect.' He said young people have also been hit with a 'double whammy' of a weaker labour market and a surge in job seekers due to rapid population growth, especially concentrated among people under 25. 'It's a bit of bad timing for these two trends to coincide, and that's a factor behind the weak youth numbers,' he said. For example, an influx of young people in Toronto are seeking help from the non-profit agency Youth Employment Services (YES). It's not the first time chief executive Timothy Lang has seen a tough summer job market, but it does mean that young people need to put more resumés out there, hone their interview skills and travel farther for work. 'Gone are the days where you might have a stack of resumés and walk down a street and go into some places,' he said. 'Now everyone's saying: 'No, no, just send it to us online.' And it's easier for the employers to just scan through, but they're getting thousands and thousands of resumés and then it's harder to put a face to a name.' Lang said there are summer jobs out there, but the short-term effects of population growth mean more people are applying for the same number of jobs, especially in larger cities. 'It definitely makes it tougher and discouraging for youth who in the past have always had to pound the pavement to some extent, but now they have to do two or three times the work to land the same job,' he said. Youth employment has always been sensitive to the whims of the wider economy. Canada's youth unemployment rate averaged 16.2 per cent from 1990 to 1997, which included a severe recession between 1990 and 1992. Amid the great recession of 2008-09, the rate peaked at 16.4 per cent in July 2009. During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth unemployment increased to a peak of 28.8 per cent in May 2020 from 17.1 per cent in March 2020. Along with the COVID-19 pandemic amplifying many of the challenges young people face, economic challenges layered on top of technological changes has caused youth employment to reach a 'crisis level,' said Ilona Dougherty, co-creator and managing director of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Gone are the days where you might have a stack of resumés and walk down a street and go into some places Timothy Lang, CEO of Youth Employment Services Along with the COVID-19 pandemic, which amplified many of the challenges young people face, economic uncertainty layered on top of technological changes have caused youth employment to reach a 'crisis level,' said Ilona Dougherty, co-creator and managing director of the Youth & Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo. 'The summer job is certainly becoming a less consistent rite of passage,' she said. 'And as a result, you see young people in their mid- or late 20s with master's degrees who have literally never had a job, and then they're struggling to get into the workforce.' Dougherty said alarm bells started going off for her a year ago, when she hosted a webinar on how to find a job. She was surprised when around 600 people registered. During follow-up calls with about a dozen participants, she heard the 'incredible frustration' felt by many of them after sending out 100 resumés and not getting a single response. 'Gen X, millennials and onward are living in a context where employers don't have a lot of loyalty towards employees. The likelihood that you're going to have a job for 40 years is very, very low,' she said. 'We're in a moment of economic challenge, but then layered onto this is the technological shift with AI, which is essentially breaking the career ladder.' Dougherty is referencing a recent New York Times article by LinkedIn Corp.'s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, who wrote that artificial intelligence 'poses a real threat to a substantial number of the jobs that normally serve as the first step for each new generation of young workers.' AI isn't swallowing jobs right away, Raman explained, but the change is coming and 'virtually all jobs will experience some impacts,' he wrote. If entry-level jobs disappear, Raman predicts it will exacerbate job market inequality for 'those lacking elite networks or privileged backgrounds' and leave employers without enough people to take up leadership roles in the future. 'Any change to young workers' job fortunes hits them at a particularly vulnerable time; getting a late start can slow down workers' careers for decades,' he wrote. Meanwhile, some parents of high school students want them to do volunteer work or activities that will look good on a university application. But the outcome is the same: a delayed passage into adulthood. 'We see it all around us. Young people not having kids, choosing not to have kids, not being able to afford a home because you need a stable job to get a mortgage, but you also need a stable job to save for a home,' said Dougherty. Perhaps nowhere is more attuned to the youth unemployment problem than Windsor, Ont. The city has been referred to as 'Canada's youth unemployment capital,' which bodes with its history of having one of the country's highest jobless rates, Mikal Fakhreddin, project coordinator and research analyst at the nonprofit Workforce WindsorEssex, said. 'People who can't find jobs in their own industries, if they have an educational background for it, tend to gravitate towards entry-level jobs because they can't get the jobs they want, and then they take those jobs from students or youth who primarily start their work experiences in entry-level jobs,' she said. Fakhreddin said youth unemployment is usually much lower in the summer months as jobs open in retail, tourism, hospitality, sports and recreation, as well as through the federal government's Canada Summer Jobs program, which provides wage subsidies to help employers create summer job opportunities for youth aged 15 to 30 years. In an acknowledgement of the tough youth job market, the federal government just announced that it will reallocate $25 million toward an additional 6,000 spots in the Summer Jobs program, bringing the total to 76,000 jobs across the country. But at the end of August, unemployment spikes again. To help tackle Windsor's chronic problems, Fakhreddin published the Youth Employment Strategy Plan earlier this year. The report analyzes local employment data and the level of support available to youth and identifies targeted priorities and feasible solutions that Workforce WindsorEssex hopes to implement over the next five years. For this fiscal year, Fakhreddin said the agency has committed to working on a device donation program to help address a 'lack of connectivity' among marginalized youth who don't have phones or laptops to search for jobs. The agency is also working on a youth-friendly advertising guidebook to help spread awareness about existing employment resources with other organizations and is developing a dedicated youth portal on its website through which young people can apply for jobs. The portal will go live in a few months. Workforce WindsorEssex also hopes to expand its high school presentation program, which educates students about in-demand job opportunities, industries on the rise and labour market information specific to the region. Fakhreddin said some of the main barriers to employment for young people include not knowing where to look for career information or where to apply, developing and articulating their skillset and writing a strong resumé. But one of the biggest challenges is landing that first job with no previous experience. 'That's been an issue for them because almost everyone looks for experience these days, but no one's willing to give them that first chance,' she said. It's a classic dilemma Edie Hodgson experienced firsthand this spring. After finishing her first year of university in Halifax and returning home to Toronto, the 18-year-old estimates she applied for 40 to 60 jobs, handing out resumés in person and applying online. 'I applied somewhere, and they'd be like, 'Sorry, you need five years of experience.' How do I even get that experience? I couldn't be a barista because everywhere I go you need barista experience,' she said. After an initially unsuccessful search, Hodgson ended up at a fast-food restaurant where she worked in high school. By chance, a vacancy opened up to run the arts and crafts program in July and August at an overnight summer camp where Hodgson previously worked as a camp counsellor. The leadership role is a good fit for Hodgson, a fine art student, and gives her the opportunity to have a positive impact on kids and spark their interest in art. 'Even if they don't become artists, I think art is really beneficial for everyone,' she said. 'I remember when I was a kid and I was going to summer camp, the older staff there really influenced me and had a big impact on me.' Her twin brother, Oscar, is also returning to his job at a family-owned piano store. A music student and pianist, he started working there in high school after introducing himself to the owner, who was outside washing the shop windows. 'Coming up with communication systems is a big one,' he said of the skills he's learned on the job. 'And then just staying organized and staying on top of … what do we need to do? What work is going on in the shop? How can we help? How can we keep things moving?' he said. Working at the store has also helped Oscar get referrals to teach piano lessons around the city, and his job has evolved into tasks beyond administration work and covering the phone. 'We're doing a summer concert series, so I've been put in charge of that. Because I'm a music student, I'm going to record a bunch of the pianos for the website, and so things like that are a little bit more engaging,' he said. Having young people around is good for employers, too. Dougherty said younger people are wired to be bold problem solvers, a quality that comes in handy during times of uncertainty and change. Younger workers also benefit from learning about strategy planning, emotional intelligence and contextual knowledge from experienced workers. For businesses to thrive, workplaces need intergenerational teams to work together. Canada's work-life balance standing slips globally Canada's unemployment rate could reach 7.5% on still strong immigration 'If we want a strong economy and we want our companies and government to have the kind of workers it's going to need in five to 10 years, you need those entry-level roles,' said Dougherty. 'You need young people to be meaningfully engaged in the economy; otherwise we're going to be in big trouble.' • Email: jswitzer@
