Youth Futures Foundation attended the Conservative and Labour party conferences for the first time in October.
The whole team, which included members of our Future Voices Group, got involved, taking part in and speaking at as many roundtables, panel events and receptions as we could to discuss changing the youth employment system to improve employment outcomes for marginalised young people.
We were thankful to be joined by young people and key stakeholders from across the sector together with Ministers and Shadow Ministers to share insights, plans and discuss opportunities for the future. In this blog, Ryan Howsham (Senior Policy Manager) and Vicki Jones (Head of Policy – jobshare) reflect on some of the exciting discussions had during the conferences.
The most recent available data shows that nearly 800,000 young people are not in education, employment or training in the UK – a 23% increase over the last two years. At the same time, there are around one million vacancies across the workforce and many employers report challenges in recruiting the skilled workers they need. Given this challenge, Youth Futures hosted two private roundtables at party conferences, focused on unlocking the future workforce by creating more opportunities for young people. The roundtables brought together MPs, local politicians, sector leaders, employer representatives and young people.
