Greens: Youth employment stats should ring alarm bell for govt
Responding to the latest stats on school leaver destinations, Scottish Greens education and young people spokesperson Ross Greer said:
“The pandemic was always going to have a negative impact on young people leaving school, but the steep drop in youth employment should be ringing alarm bells in government. And that’s before recognising that many of those counted as having reached a ‘positive destination’ are in fact being paid poverty wages and on a zero-hours contract. The Greens and trade unions have long called for the definition of a positive destination to be changed, so we can better tell whether or not young people are in the kind of quality employment they deserve.
“If the Scottish Government is serious about helping young people to reach genuinely positive destinations after school, it should start by adding conditions to the hundreds of millions of pounds in business support grants it issues. Receiving public money should depend on businesses paying workers a real living wage, creating more quality apprenticeships and ending exploitative contracts.”