Alan Milburn is guiding a metal loop along the serpentine wire of an electrical buzzer game as he explains the challenge of Britain\u2019s youth jobs crisis. \u201cWe have got more than a million young people not in education, employment or training (Neet). Crisis is an over-used word \u2013 but this is a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a fact-finding trip to Dublin, the former UK cabinet minister is being shown around an Irish Rail training facility. He tells the apprentices who rigged up the game that, while things are bad in Britain, Ireland<\/a> is on the right track.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about half the rate here, it\u2019s fallen very rapidly. And we want to try to work out, what is that? Why? There\u2019s something going on; maybe there\u2019s something you guys have been doing that we haven\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n Alyx Tobin, one of the hi-vis clad trainees, chips in: \u201cHopefully we can get to the bottom of it together?\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past decade, Ireland has achieved the fastest reduction in Neet rates anywhere in the EU, from 14.3% in 2015 to 6.1% last year. That compares with a rise from 11.1% to 12.8% in the UK. Romania is the only EU country with a higher rate.<\/p>\n graph showing youth unemployment has been higher in UK than Ireland since 2022<\/a><\/p>\n As he prepares to publish a report into the crisis for the UK government this autumn, Milburn has brought a delegation of officials, charity leaders, industry bosses and the mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, with him on the trip across the Irish sea.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here really to understand what the secret sauce is,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe life chances of young people here are being transformed. You don\u2019t have to go far \u2013 to the outskirts of Dublin \u2013 before you find huge pockets of deprivation and poverty. So nobody here would say, \u2018We\u2019ve got it solved.\u2019 But there is definitely something different that we can learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n Back home, Andy Burnham has made tackling Britain\u2019s youth jobs crisis a top priority, using his first weeks as prime minister to launch a series of measures to boost technical education<\/a> and apprenticeships<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alan Milburn visits the Irish Rail Apprentice Training Centre. Photograph: Patrick Bolger\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Labour is also preparing for a fresh attempt at welfare reform amid concerns about the \u00a3125bn annual cost to the economy and public finances<\/a> from the rise in youth worklessness.<\/p>\n Under Keir Starmer, the government set targets to eradicate long-term youth unemployment and launched jobs programmes, grants and guarantees aimed at helping young adults to get into work.<\/p>\n However, business leaders argue Labour has made matters worse through tax increases, a rising minimum wage, and plans to strengthen workers\u2019 rights. Employers have also faced other rising costs and weak consumer demand amid the cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n In Ireland, part of the reason for the youth jobs turnaround is down to its economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n The country was among the biggest global casualties as the implosion of a property market bubble triggered a 10% crash in the economy in a single year and drove unemployment to 16% by 2012. Youth joblessness peaked at almost 30%, while many left to work abroad amid the 2010s eurozone debt crisis.<\/p>\n graph showing UK and Ireland unemployment rates since 2023<\/a><\/p>\n Corey Farrell\u2019s father was among many who left for the UK when his job as a mechanic at German airline Lufthansa was put at risk. \u201cWhen that shut down here, he got sniped to go over,\u201d says the Irish Rail apprentice. \u201cHe\u2019s worked over there ever since. I was only six at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, the economy has bounced back, in part fuelled by big US tech companies taking advantage of low taxes<\/a>. The country is \u201c100% through the worst\u201d, Farrell says. If anything, things have gone too far the other way as living costs surge. \u201cYou can see it more than anything else in how expensive everything here is.\u201d<\/p>\n Milburn recognises Ireland\u2019s progress is partly driven by economic factors. Still, Britain could still learn a few policy lessons.<\/p>\n At St Seton\u2019s secondary school, to the west of central Dublin, teachers tell the former Labour cabinet minister that they get extra money from the Irish government to support children at risk of poverty, social exclusion and educational disadvantage.<\/p>\n Funded under the \u201cDEIS\u201d (delivering equal opportunity in schools) programme, there is a big focus on technical education and helping students to prepare to enter the world of work.<\/p>\n Sitting in the staff room, the school\u2019s principal, Sarah Green, and its career and guidance counsellor, Cheryl Keeler, explain they are agnostic about whether a student progresses to university. Getting a job is more important.<\/p>\n Work experience is graded as part of the curriculum, while pupils have an opportunity to take a \u201ctransition year<\/a>\u201d (TY) before studying for either an academic or vocational leaving certificate (equivalent to A-levels or the international baccalaureate). As an optional scheme, the TY has no curriculum and typically involves work experience and careers guidance, but core subjects have to be covered in some form for two hours a week.<\/p>\n Calum, a student at the school, took a Chinese course for 10 weeks. After completing his applied leaving certificate, from September he will start as an apprentice for Diageo at Dublin\u2019s celebrated St James\u2019s Gate Guinness brewery. \u201cIt was easy thanks to the school,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In Britain, Burnham is pushing to advance the parity of esteem between academic and technical education routes. Last month he announced a new \u00a34,500 per year per household bursary<\/a> to support the take-up of apprenticeships.<\/p>\n