In a labour market that increasingly resembles a game of musical chairs for the under-25s, Merseyside is quietly doing the unthinkable: it is getting them into jobs. While the national picture grimly ticks upward, with youth unemployment figures flirting with recession-era levels, this corner of the North West has bucked the trend. The reason? A local employment scheme, piloted with the quiet determination of a librarian wrangling a particularly stubborn class, has been deemed an unequivocal success.
Let’s rewind. The past few years have been brutal for young people entering the workforce. The pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, the strange limbo of a gig economy that offers Uber Eats shifts but not a pension. Nationally, the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (the dreaded NEETs) has crept up to levels that make economists wince. But in Merseyside, a coalition of local councils, colleges and employers decided to try something different. They called it the Merseyside Youth Employment Initiative (MYEI), a name as pragmatic as a beige office carpet.
Here is how it works. Instead of the usual scattergun approach of job fairs and CV workshops, MYEI targeted specific industries with genuine local demand: logistics at the Port of Liverpool, green tech in the Knowledge Quarter, social care across the boroughs. They partnered with secondary schools, not universities, catching teenagers at the critical moment before they drifted into the limbo of zero-hour contracts. The scheme offered paid internships, not the exploitative 'work experience' that often means filing papers for two weeks. And crucially, it provided mental health support. Young people, we have belatedly realised, are fragile. A job interview is terrifying enough without the weight of a furloughed childhood on your shoulders.
The results are striking. Since 2022, youth unemployment in Merseyside has dropped by 11 per cent, while the national average edged up. The scheme has placed over 1,400 young people into sustained employment, a number that the Department for Work and Pensions has noted with the kind of guarded approval usually reserved for a free lunch. Local employers report that these recruits are staying in their jobs longer than the national average. They are turning up on time. They are asking for promotions.
But the real story is on the ground. Talk to a 19-year-old from Toxteth who now drives a forklift at the docks, or a 21-year-old from St Helens who is training to install solar panels. They tell you about the sheer, mundane relief of a steady pay packet. About the dignity of being able to buy their own groceries. About no longer having to make up excuses for why they can't afford a round at the pub. This, right here, is the human cost of unemployment: a quiet erosion of hope. And the cultural shift in Merseyside is that hope is slowly, tentatively returning.
What did the scheme get right? Three things. First, it was local. National schemes often feel like a slab of policy dropped from a great height, shattering on contact with local reality. MYEI was built by people who knew that the bus service from Huyton to the docks is patchy, so they provided travel subsidies. Second, it was patient. They were willing to take a chance on a teenager with a bad haircut and a worse attitude. Third, it was honest. They didn't promise a glamorous career; they promised a job, and a decent one at that.
The lesson for the rest of the country is uncomfortable. We have spent decades obsessing over university and white-collar work, denigrating the trades and logistics. Young people internalised that message. They believed that only a degree would save them. Merseyside is showing that a job does not need to be aspirational to be transformative. Sometimes, a steady income and a manager who remembers your name is enough.
There are, of course, caveats. The scheme is small-scale, and the national headwinds remain formidable. But for the young people of Merseyside, the needle has moved. And in this economy, that is no small thing.
