Today's lesson:
We're face-to-face at the BFI
Are Saturday jobs less popular
among teenagers now?
By Elisabeth Mahy
Business reporter, BBC News
A
Saturday job used to be a rite of passage for many children, but pressure to
succeed at school and other factors means that's no longer the case.
The number of
schoolchildren with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five
years, new figures show. The findings come from a Freedom of Information (FOI)
request to all local authorities across the UK responsible for issuing child
employment permits.
Dr Angus Holford
from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex
said he believed young people in compulsory education are fearful that a
part-time job could hinder their performance at school. "Teens are being
told evermore that you need to get good GCSEs and A-levels to get a good job in
the long term," he said. "Passing the exams you need now is looming
larger in people's concerns."
Geoff Barton,
general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
"Properly regulated part-time work is a good way of helping young people
learn skills that they will need in their working lives. "It is vital that
young people, and their parents, ensure that any part-time work they are
undertaking leaves them with sufficient time for study and rest."
But the drop in
children working part-time isn't just about academic pressures, it's also due
to changing consumer habits. One of the biggest drops in employment permits
being issued was in Middlesbrough. In 2011, 101 permits were issued to 13 to
15-year-old children there, but in 2016 the number was just seven. The council
said the "massive drop" was due to a decline in the number of people
in the area who had a newspaper delivered to their door.
Gareth Lewis, the
chair of the National Network for Children in Employment and Entertainment,
which sets guidelines and good practice for employers, said it was beneficial
for children to have some form of part-time work. "This decline is not
something we have been made aware of … it is hard to see why there may be a
trend."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-41989185
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