The youth unemployment crisis is destroying young people's confidence

We’ve had another major review. Another set of recommendations. Another round of national debate.

Whilst I welcome both the attention and the government’s announcement of 300,000 additional work placements, I suspect many young people are asking the same question: “What will actually change for me?”

Because this isn’t simply a numbers problem.

When I was permanently excluded from school at 14, very few people stopped to ask why. The reality was that I was skipping school to attend consultant appointments with my mum after she became seriously unwell. Looking back, what concerns me most isn’t the exclusion itself. It’s that nobody really asked what sat underneath it.

I’ve worked alongside thousands of young people over the last decade and I still see versions of that story every week.

This youth unemployment crisis isn’t because of a lack of ambition. It’s because many talented young people are slowly losing confidence in themselves whilst trying to navigate increasingly fragile pathways into opportunity.

We’re now seeing young people seemingly doing everything “right”, completing school, college, sometimes university, and still struggling to access meaningful opportunities afterwards.

Eventually, constant rejection stops feeling like rejection from employers and starts becoming rejection of yourself.

What changed my own trajectory wasn’t a perfect system. It was a careers advisor called Linda who remembered me. After my mum passed away, she reached back out and shared an apprenticeship opportunity.

She didn’t have to do that. But she chose to.

That’s why I believe young people experience systems through relationships.

At a certain point, commentary alone stopped feeling enough. I got fed up with watching talented young people lose confidence in themselves whilst policymakers and ministers debated the problem from a distance.

That’s why I founded BREAKOUT Charity.

The government’s announcement is a positive step, but young people don’t experience policy announcements. They experience pathways.

We should absolutely invest in large-scale solutions, but we should also ensure investment reaches the organisations, employers and community groups that have trusted relationships with young people on the ground.

And we need to ensure employers are heard too. Many genuinely want to create opportunities for young people but are navigating significant pressures themselves. Employers are a vital part of the solution in this conversation.

The challenge isn’t choosing between young people and employers or identifying the problem.

It’s joining the dots.

For any young people reading this who feel stuck, rejected or disconnected from opportunity, I want you to know there is nothing wrong with you.

Young people are not the problem. It’s the fragile, fractured pathways around them, and it’s time we demanded more.

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Roman Dibden is a youth employment expert and the founder of BREAKOUT, a youth employment charity for 16-25-year-olds based in Manchester.

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