Young, ambitious and out of work: ‘I’ve gone from Oxford to zero jobs. It’s a bit of a fall’

Composite: Guardian Design; /alexsl View image in fullscreen Composite: Guardian Design; /alexsl Young, ambitious and out of work: ‘I’ve gone from Oxford to zero jobs. It’s a bit of a fall’ About 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in employment, education or training – and the obstacles they face are bigger than ever. Those unemployed for a year or more explain how they are coping Thomas doesn’t leave the house much. Apart from walking his dog, the only other excursion the 24-year-old regularly makes is a “humiliating” weekly trip to Iceland, where he stocks up on seven £1 frozen meals, usually an assortment of bland curries with the occasional garishly sweet, takeaway-style Chinese meal. “You’re going in and buying seven and the cashier is 100% thinking: oh, that’s one a day,” he says. Half the time, he doesn’t bother eating them. “You just sit there and go: I don’t want it again. I’ve had it for two days on the trot.” Like all of the young people interviewed for this piece, Thomas has been unemployed for more than a year. He is one of 82,000 16- to 24-year-olds in England in the same grim predicament. Thomas, who lives in Warrington, gets £311 a month in universal credit. After his bills are paid and his dog’s food is accounted for, he has about £25 for the month. He is hardly lazy, having worked since he was 16. But this changed in October 2024 when he lost his job as a pub manager. Despite applying for about 2,000 jobs since, he’s had no luck. At first, he was optimistic about securing more work. “I was applying left and right. I didn’t think I’d have any problems,” he says. But, apart from the occasional “copy-and-paste” rejection email, all he’s heard back is silence. Thomas is a pseudonym: he asked us not to use his real name in case it further reduced his chances of landing a job. It’s not just his diet on which he’s had to compromise: his social life has come to a halt, too. When he is invited out for a few drinks or an activity such as paintball, he can’t go. “I say: ‘I can’t afford this extra 30 quid. I just can’t.’” Sometimes he lies, saying he needs to stay at home with his dog. After more than a year and a half of unemployment, the misery is taking a toll. “I’d just like a normal life, mate,” he says. “To be able to go and meet people and do stuff and to not have to come up with lies.