Stop blaming young people for being unemployed, says Amazon's UK boss

Sean Farrington, presenter, Big Boss Interview podcast A record number of young people are out of work – but it is not their fault, Amazon's UK boss has said. "We have to stop blaming young people," John Boumphrey told the BBC, adding that the education system was not "producing young people who are ready for work". Nearly a million young Britons are not in education, employment or training, yet Boumphrey says Amazon struggles to recruit workers with the skills it needs.

He called for work experience to be mandatory for over-16s. "It's not a motivation problem - it's a system problem, and that requires a system response." Earlier this week, official figures show the UK's unemployment rate rose slightly to 5% in the three months to March from 4.9% in the three months to February. Jane Foley, managing director at Rabobank, told the BBC it was "a horrible number". "Hospitality jobs is where many of us, including myself, would have originally got your initial taste of work experience when we were young," she added. "But those jobs, partly because of minimum wage legislation, but partly because of technology also have been shutting the door perhaps on a lot of young people." Separate research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Tuesday shows the current fall in youth employment rates is approaching the level of decline seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Former Labour minister Alan Milburn, who is due to publish his independent review of UK youth unemployment in the summer, told the BBC earlier this year the issue was "a social catastrophe, an economic catastrophe and a political catastrophe". Amazon employs 75,000 people in the UK, half of whom come straight from education or unemployment, according to Boumphrey. Boumphrey, Amazon's country manager for the UK, said: "I think too often you read about young people that somehow they lack motivation, they lack resilience, they lack the will to develop skills. "We work with some individuals who are probably furthest from work and that's where we actually see the biggest transformation," he said, pointing to a work experience programme the company runs for young people with learning disabilities and autism. Work experience should be mandatory for over-16s because it was "transformative" in helping young people learn "things that I don't think we teach in our curriculum, but that all employers are looking for", he said. "If you get a T-level student, they come in for a week, they understand the value of teamwork, of communication and problem solving," he told the BBC's Big Boss Interview . The Department for Education expects post-16 providers to offer work experience as part of their funding conditions.

Key points

• He called for work experience to be mandatory for over-16s.
• "It's not a motivation problem - it's a system problem, and that requires a system response." Earlier this week, official figures show the UK's unemployment rate rose slightly to 5% in the three mo…
• Jane Foley, managing director at Rabobank, told the BBC it was "a horrible number".
• "Hospitality jobs is where many of us, including myself, would have originally got your initial taste of work experience when we were young," she added.
• "But those jobs, partly because of minimum wage legislation, but partly because of technology also have been shutting the door perhaps on a lot of young people." Separate research published by the…