Young people are bearing the brunt of the economic damage caused by the Covid pandemic, and their prospects will continue to be stunted as the jobs market recovers in the months to come.
Analysis by the Prince’s Trust and HSBC also found that while some areas of the economy might begin on the road to recovery, young workers were under-represented in these sectors, and the industries that typically employ young people would be hardest hit in the long term.
Based on labour market analysis and surveys with employers and young people, the report also warns that the pandemic will continue to exacerbate pre-existing inequalities.
Facing the future: employment prospects for young people after coronavirus suggested that young people tended to be over-represented in sectors likely to have lower employment in the long term and under-represented among those occupations forecast to have the strongest job growth.
The authors argued that longer-term structural changes in the labour market were likely to reduce future employment opportunities for young people without support to improve skills for the jobs available