{"id":339861,"date":"2025-12-09T23:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/339861\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T23:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:05:07","slug":"uk-launches-965-million-plan-to-get-unemployed-gen-z-into-ai-hospitality-and-engineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/339861\/","title":{"rendered":"UK launches $965 million plan to get unemployed Gen Z into AI, hospitality, and engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Gen Z have been desperately trying to break into the job market, sending out thousands<\/a> of applications, standing on Wall Street with a sign<\/a> begging for a job, and waitressing at<\/a> industry conferences to stealthily hand out their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s. There\u2019s also a growing camp of disillusioned young adults who have completely checked out<\/a> of education, employment, and training: NEETs<\/a>. Now, one country is trying to tackle the youth unemployment crisis<\/a> with a nearly $1 billion plan.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced a<\/a> $965 million investment to create more apprenticeships<\/a> and place 50,000 young people into roles.<\/p>\n

In partnership with regional leaders, the three-year initiative will equip young hopefuls with the skills training needed for local job opportunities. A $186 million chunk of the eye-watering funding will be used for a pilot in which mayors will connect the Gen Zers, especially NEETs, with nearby employers. And to ease the financial burden on some companies, the plan will also cover the full cost of apprenticeships for talent under 25 years old at small and medium-size businesses.<\/p>\n

U.K. Gen Zers will have access to more apprenticeship roles in high-demand industries like hospitality and retail. But the government is still paying close attention to the critical skills<\/a> young professionals need in the age of AI<\/a>; new short courses in engineering, digital skills, and AI will also start rolling out starting April 2026. This apprenticeship push by the U.K. is all part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a>\u2019s master plan to get two-thirds of young people active in higher-level learning and apprenticeships, after a sharp drop in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, success has been measured by how many young people go to university. That narrow view has held back opportunity and created barriers we need to break,\u201d Starmer said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s time to change the way apprenticeships are viewed and to put them on an equal footing with university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gen Zers are struggling with unemployment in the U.K. and abroad<\/p>\n

The U.K.\u2019s ambitious billion-dollar strategy is a welcome one, as youth unemployment rates have surged all around the world.<\/p>\n

During the first half of last year, more than 16%, or almost 460,000 of 18- to 24-year-old U.K. men, were NEETs<\/a>\u2014the highest rate<\/a> in over a decade. On a global scale, about a fifth of<\/a> people between ages 15 and 24 in 2023 were NEET-status. And for those actively on the job-hunt, options are scarce. In 2023 and 2024, more than 1.2 million applications were submitted for<\/a> just under 17,000 open graduate roles in the U.K., according to<\/a> the Institute of Student Employers (ISE).\u00a0<\/p>\n

It marked the highest number of applications per job ever recorded since the ISE started collecting data in 1991.<\/p>\n

But across the pond, the situation doesn\u2019t look any better: In 2022, there were roughly 4.3 million jobless Gen Z NEETs in the United States<\/a>. And as of September this year, 9.4% of men and 9% of women ages 20 to 24 were jobless\u2014more than two times higher than the general 4.4% unemployment rate, according to a FRED analysis<\/a> of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, U.S. officials caution the problem could get even worse. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned that joblessness<\/a> among recent college graduates could skyrocket to as high as 25% in the next two to three years, thanks to AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar to the U.K. government, Warner proposed a<\/a> job retraining program\u2014and the issue goes beyond party lines. In partnership with Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), they introduced a bill<\/a> that would require businesses and federal agencies to report any AI-related job disruption to the Department of Labor, with results to be published to the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some Gen Z have been desperately trying to break into the job market, sending out thousands of applications,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,525,101,526,4084,4435,23586,153,20730,5678,23587,134,86620,6071,2122,2830,2761,24341,145,6074,6075],"class_list":["post-339861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-careers","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-employment","tag-engineering","tag-entry-level","tag-gen-z","tag-hospitality","tag-job-hunting","tag-job-seekers","tag-jobs","tag-prime-minister","tag-skills","tag-training","tag-u-s","tag-uk","tag-uk-government","tag-unemployment","tag-young-adults","tag-young-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}