Save the Saturday job - without it, young people have no way into work

Those early shifts are often where people first discover what work really means. They’re not just about earning money but about building confidence, learning responsibility, working within a team, and feeling part of something bigger. For millions of people across this country, retail opened that first door into working life. Right now, there is a real risk that the door could close.

For one in five people, their first job was in retail. This was often a single weekend shift that developed into something much more. It is a story I still see play out every week. At H&M, many of the people leading our stores and teams today began that way: a few hours on the weekend, learning on the shop floor, developing new skills, and growing in confidence over time. I did the same.

The expectations were simple: turn up, work hard and be willing to learn. My early years in-store taught me lessons that stayed with me throughout my career; how to work as part of a team, how to understand customers, how to stay resilient under pressure, and how much impact good leadership can have on someone starting out. That is why retail matters so much. It not only provides jobs but opportunities.

For many people, a Saturday job is the first real step towards independence. It can help a young person gain confidence, give someone returning to work a fresh start, or provide flexibility for people balancing family life, caring responsibilities or health challenges. These roles meet people where they are in life and give them the chance to move forward at their own pace.

But the ability to continue offering these opportunities cannot be taken for granted.

Retailers across the country are facing significant cost pressures, from increases in National Insurance contributions and the National Living Wage to sustained energy costs and wider economic uncertainty. Responsible employers support fair pay and good working conditions and should continue to do so. But when pressures build simultaneously, businesses inevitably become more cautious about creating flexible, entry-level roles.

Too often, the first opportunities to disappear are the very ones that help people enter the workforce for the first time.

At a time when unemployment is at 5%, and close to a million young people are not in education, employment or training, we should be making those first steps into work easier, not harder. We should be protecting the kinds of flexible roles that have supported social mobility and opened doors for generations of people from all backgrounds.

Policy should reflect that reality and support employers in continuing to offer accessible, flexible opportunities for people taking their first steps into work.

If these entry-level roles continue to disappear, the impact will be felt most by those who can least afford to lose them: the young person seeking their first experience, the parent rebuilding confidence after time away from work, or the individual looking for a pathway back into employment.

For millions of people, the Saturday job was where working life began. We should be careful not to take that opportunity away from the next generation.

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Karen O’Rourke is Managing Director of H&M UK & Ireland, having started her career on the shop floor at Merry Hill in the West Midlands.

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