There is something worrying pension people and it’s about young people. Today, within a few minutes I received a report of an alarming stat. on young people in the UK and a report from an IFA who is trying to connect with them on financial (pension) planning. Here are the two instances of concern.
Unemployment in the UK has risen to 5.1 per cent, its highest level in almost five years, and younger workers have been hit particularly hard.
The jobless rate for 18 to 34-year-olds stands at 8.7 per cent, but there’s also more than half a million young people who aren’t even… pic.twitter.com/FsN3qD5qwH
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 17, 2025
Here is the young IFA.
Jo Cumbo sums up the mood in the pension world I work in
I had that feeling of being young between 1976 and 1984 – it was the time of economic and social depression. This was the song that was about unemployment we had.
I’m not sure we have ever had a generation that wasn’t “lost” at some time between teenage and your twenties.
My quick chat with Tom Johnson (who I suspect is rather like how I was when I was his age) went like this
It’s Christmas and there is a Crisis for many young people. Many good people give their Christmas’ up to help youngsters (and those a little older) through dark days.
We can’t all do this, but we can all be aware that it isn’t an easy time, it never was, it isn’t going to be.
The Government doesn’t help, if it was as we wanted, we wouldn’t have anything to punch against, keep punching Tom!
Hello Henry,
Young people currently without employment: 946,000
I have heard this sad headline and read through your links above. I have also looked at the National Office of Statistics but all I can see there is an explantion of what the classifications are in greater detail. What it doesn’t say is how this figure is compiled. That is: are these unemployed the general situation across the UK, or is the problem mainly in the cities or in the provinces? How many individuals have no qualifications whatsoever and how many have school qualifications and/or higher education qualifications? How many (dare I say it) are male or female and/or other statistical groupings?
Over the recent years there have been continuous reports regarding Zero Hours contracts. Will the latest legislation improve that situation or increase it? Is this the onset of the much-publicised AI onslaught of the reduction of jobs and what plans are there for overcoming that? Rachel Reeves and Alan Milburn are trying to make a start but, like everything else political, I suggest the ‘devil is in the detail’. It will be interesting to see how they intend to succeed before ‘the horse has bolted’..
Meanwhile I doubt that many individuals in that figure of 946,000 will be paying £25 for a haircut.
Kind regards,
Tim Simpson