Young people and unemployment

I’m sitting in a busy classroom. It’s sunny outside – the first days of genuine sunshine I’ve seen since… last year. The view from a nearby window is full of colour, spring time flowers are in full bloom among the uncut grass, which ripples softly in the light breeze. Gently swaying trees of the deepest green are casting shadows over the car park below, making them seem less robotic as part of the scenery, and scantily clad people shuffle lazily about their daily grind…

A deadline alert on my computer makes me snap out of my peaceful daydream, back into reality as I continue to write my article on the current unemployment crisis in the UK. It’s rapidly becoming more and more apparent just how lucky I am to be here, being educated and working towards a prosperous career in the media industry. Apparently, over two million people in the UK aren’t so lucky.

With the recent massive decline in the economy, hard working people all over the UK are being made jobless and are resorting to claiming benefits as a means of survival. The number of people claiming job seekers allowance has risen to 1.07million – the largest rise since 1991. These people aren’t scroungers (well, the majority of them aren’t, but you do get the odd lowlife…). They are the innocent victims of a global economic crisis.

This brings me to the people in our age group. As an 18-year-old student living independently in London, I have only just begun the journey towards financial stability, but at least for me, the journey has begun. I can take comfort in the fact that I’m studying something I enjoy, something that I’m good at. But what of those in my age group who evidently still haven’t come to terms with the fact that there is an economic crisis going on all around them resulting in the unemployment of millions?

Daily I see young people bypassing the front pages of newspapers to get to the sports section, or the horoscopes. Being told by some random old fat dude, who’s probably cooped up in his little corner of his tiny office somewhere in Essex, that you are going to fall out with your mum, loose your UGG boots, break your I-Pod again and find money behind a red door (so that you can buy a new one) will not help you shape your future, because the man dictating what the sky says your future holds (which he probably found on the internet while talking to his Mrs on Facebook), is not going to provide you with a constructive purpose to your future.

I’m forever observing young people wasting their days away doing absolutely nothing apart from being “yoots on road”, convincing themselves that there’s always next year to go to college, there’s always someone that’ll give me a job in Sainsbury’s…

This article was written by Jessica McKenna a student on Dv8’s Multimedia and Journalism course. If you live in London and are interested in applying for this course click here. DV8 are based in Walthamstow and also run courses such as the Complete Music Industry Project and Music Production and Business.