RIP the Saturday job.
This week's report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) contains a shocking statistic. The number of under-18s doing Saturday jobs has halved since the mid-1990s from four in 10 to two in 10. The latest figures show 260,000 teenagers doing such jobs, down from 435,000 in 1997. The report predicts that things are about to get a lot worse, largely because of structural changes in the labour market. In particular, the few new jobs are coming overwhelmingly from small companies, which set more store by experience, the one thing a 17-year-old doesn't have. Simultaneously, restaurants and retail, which accounted for the bulk of Saturday jobs, are both shedding staff.
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