BECKY SHEAVES

The aim is to educate these little munchkins in the very earliest and most important steps towards becoming rounded, friendly, curious human beings

- 

SORRY to be morbid but among the more dismal statistics to be released lately were the youth unemployment figures.

A total of 546,000 people aged 18-24 are out of work, up by 85,000 on the previous quarter and the highest level since 2015. Add in those who are signed off work for mental health or disabilities and that means there are almost a million “Neets” (not in employment, education or training”) in the country right now.

I'm not here to bemoan the situation. Instead, I've been wondering why and what can be done. As an employer of this age group - we have a lot of youngsters working for us at our two childcare settings I can probably comment on the situation with some understanding of the issues involved.

First up, however, I would like to say that not everyone under 24 is sitting around feeling depressed, declaring themselves to have ADHD and claiming benefits unnecessarily. I am constantly amazed at just how capable our young staff are at such tender ages. We have people in their early 20s who are already astonishingly capable.