‘The best work experience is being valued, respected and properly paid in a secure permanent job’

The retail sector is the UK’s biggest private sector employer, and a key employer of young people. For many people, a job in retail is their first step into employment, where they learn vital skills and often progress into a retail career. So, retail has to be part of the solution to youth unemployment, and we want to see the government working with retailers and unions to tackle it.

Young people need decent jobs, that are properly paid, and secure hours to ensure they can make ends meet every week. That is what Labour’s New Deal for Workers is all about and the Party was right to make it a cornerstone of their election manifesto. It must now be delivered in full to ensure that the next generation are not exploited by employers, but inspired to go to work and progress. That is the experience of work that many past generations have had and the experience that every young person deserves.

We know that poor quality work is linked with financial insecurity, declining mental health and labour market exit. So, when we talk about solutions to youth employment, that needs to be a conversation about good jobs, about supporting young people with reasonable adjustments, and about security at work.

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That’s why the Employment Rights Act is so important. This is the biggest uplift in workers’ rights in a generation and delivers on many of the campaigns Usdaw has been running over the years. Crucially, the Act helps to protect decent employers from being undercut by the worst who exploit workers.

Much of the detailed implementation of the Act is still being resolved. It’s essential that there are no loopholes for unscrupulous employers to exploit, and that all workers benefit from these new rights. Nowhere is this clearer than in the new right to guaranteed hours, which the government is proposing to limit to workers on contracts of 20 hours or less.

Thousands of Usdaw members shared their experiences of short hours contracts through the government’s recent consultation. They talked about how they rely on additional hours that aren’t guaranteed in their contracts, leaving them without financial security and making it difficult to get a mortgage, rent a home or arrange childcare. Our members have called on the government, loudly and clearly, to deliver their manifesto commitment to implement the right to a guaranteed hours contract for everyone.

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Young workers are already at particular risk from insecure work and exploitation. We reject the notion that getting more young people into work should mean rolling back their rights. Of course sectors like retail are facing real challenges, but we need to recognise that this is driven by structural issues like automation, business rates and long term underinvestment in our high street infrastructure. Those are the areas where the government needs to be taking action, and we welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to a high street strategy.

We need an industrial strategy centred around investment in skills and with a real voice for workers, which doesn’t leave sectors like retail behind. If we’re serious about addressing youth unemployment then the government needs to be serious about retail as an employer.

There is absolutely a role for government in supporting employers to take young people on in paid work, with secure hours and opportunities for progression. Where employers are using work experience schemes they must ensure that this is done separately from current and future staffing resources and that it involves real training and a route to permanent, secure work.

If we are going to tackle youth unemployment, we need to support good jobs in sectors like retail, with security and opportunities for progression. We’re calling on the government, and on employers, to work with us to achieve that.

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