Britain says it lacks workers while one million young people sit idle
Recruiting experienced workers from abroad is quicker than training idle youth, but it leaves hospitals and other services exposed when migrants leave.
Economics Explained · The End Game of U.K EconomicsBritain has unfilled jobs alongside about one million people aged 16 to 24 who are neither studying, working, nor in job training. That is 12.8% of the age group, a higher share than in every European Union country except Romania.
One reason the two do not meet is speed. In an open labor market, employers hire whoever already offers the needed skills and willingness. Migrants from lower income countries have a strong incentive to move for higher pay, so experienced workers are readily available. Bringing them in is easier and quicker than the slow work of training young people at home.
Pay and working conditions add to the pull. Jobs in care, farming, hospitality, and construction are often physically demanding, low paid, and irregular, with little progression. Employers often cannot fill such jobs locally at the pay, conditions, and paths to promotion now on offer, while for newcomers the same jobs can still pay far better than work at home.
On this account, because hiring from abroad fills the gap, young people at home who could be trained for these jobs are largely not trained in the numbers needed. When vacancies caused by skill shortages rise, approvals for work visas tend to rise a year or two later. The National Health Service, the country's biggest employer, accepts that it leans too heavily on staff recruited from abroad to keep care going.
The arrangement works until it does not. Workers recruited from abroad tend to go home or move on when the economy stumbles or a crisis hits, as happened after Brexit and during the pandemic. Rising demand from other countries as populations age gives them attractive alternatives.
In the source's comparison, hiring from abroad is like taking a standard painkiller for an ongoing condition: the ache eases, but the underlying problem remains, and feeling better makes it easier to put off the real fix.
That does not mean all one million would move into jobs if hiring from abroad stopped. Many face mental health problems, long term sickness, disabilities, or caring duties, and artificial intelligence is cutting how many starter jobs are on offer.
Questions people ask
Who counts as idle youth?
In general, the term means young people aged 16 to 24 who are neither studying, working, nor in job training. It is a statistical category, not a judgment about motivation.
Why don't employers just raise pay to attract locals?
The source does not estimate what higher pay would do. It says only that care, farming, hospitality, and construction jobs are often physically demanding, low paid, and irregular with little progression, and that employers often cannot fill them locally at what is now on offer.