John Caudwell: Bring back Saturday jobs to fix youth unemployment
Spiralling labour costs and regulation have decimated what used to be entry level jobs for teenagers, says John Caudwell
I started work young. I grew worms in a box under my mother’s bed to sell to fishermen, traded cigarette packet coupons, knocked on doors selling soap for charity and later ran a small mail-order business selling motorcycle clothing. None of this felt unusual. Working early was simply how you learned responsibility, independence and the value of money.
That is why the quiet disappearance of Saturday jobs should worry us all. An experience that once shaped millions of working lives has faded away, and the consequences are now becoming clear.
Today, fewer than one in five 16-17-year-olds in Britain are in work, down from nearly half at the start of the century. At the same time, nearly a million young people aged 16 to 24 are classified as NEET, meaning not in education, employment or training. These figures point to a system failing to help young people make the basic transition into working life.
Former Labour minister Alan Milburn, who is leading a government review into youth unemployment, has warned that the rapid decline of Saturday jobs, from paper rounds to shop work, risks creating a lost generation unprepared for the world of work. He is right. Those few hours a week matter far more than we often realise. They teach punctuality, teamwork, customer service, confidence and resilience. They also give young people the practical work experience that so many full-time roles later in life now demand. Even graduates are better prepared for employment if they have learned the basics of work early on.
A few hours’ work a week matter far more than we often realise. They teach punctuality, teamwork, customer service, confidence and resilience
I saw the value of this first-hand later in life as the founder of Phones 4u. At its peak, the business employed tens of thousands of people across the UK, many of them young. Our high street stores were often a first job for teenagers working Saturdays, students earning their way through college, or school leavers taking their first step into retail and sales.
Phones 4u was not designed as a youth employment scheme. It was a commercial success that happened to give young people a chance. On the shop floor, they learned how to speak to customers, meet targets, handle pressure and work as part of a team. Many started part-time and progressed into management roles. Others took those skills into different industries and built successful careers elsewhere. That kind of large-scale, entry-level employment has become far rarer, particularly on the high street.
Respect for hard work
When I left school at 16, long before Phones 4u existed, I followed a similarly practical path. Before joining Michelin as an apprentice, I took whatever work was available. I swept floors in a pottery, I manhandled steel ingots in a steel mill, I even worked as a nightclub doorman. These jobs were tough and often unglamorous, but they taught me discipline, grit and respect for hard work.
My apprenticeship then gave me structure by combining learning with real responsibility. It was not a fallback option. It was a gateway into adulthood. Yet today, too many young people never reach that gateway at all.
The reasons are well known. Hiring young workers is more expensive and regulated. Schools often discourage paid work in favour of academics alone. Parents worry about balance. Meanwhile, the small, informal jobs that once introduced teenagers to work – paper rounds, Saturday shop shifts and casual retail roles – have steadily disappeared.
The government has begun to respond. In the Budget, ministers announced new funding aimed at reducing youth unemployment, alongside reforms to apprenticeships and expanded support for young people on benefits. These are sensible steps. The state cannot afford, morally or economically, to leave nearly a million young people disengaged from work.
But policy alone will not solve what is also a cultural problem. We have stopped seeing early work as a positive. Saturday jobs are treated as a risk rather than an opportunity.
If we want to reduce NEET numbers, we must rebuild the everyday pathways into work that once existed naturally. That means making it easier for businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, to hire young people part-time. It means valuing practical experience alongside exam results. And it means recognising that work itself is a form of education.
A job, however modest, gives a young person purpose, confidence and independence. Britain does not lack ambition among its youth. What it lacks are the stepping stones that allow that ambition to grow early.
Rebuilding Saturday jobs, apprenticeships and entry-level roles may not sound revolutionary. But it may be the most effective way to ensure the next generation is ready for work, and for life.
John Caudwell is an entrepreneur