In August 1988, after weeks of practice, I created the perfect Mr Whippy ice cream. I was 14 and I had a Saturday job in a cafe. When the sun shone I’d get to lean out of the serving hatch, chat to passers-by and sell ice creams. Rarely have strawberry sauce and sugar sprinkles been so lovingly applied to such gravity-defying cornets.
Go to your local cafe this Saturday and the chances are you won’t be served by an over-enthusiastic 14 year-old. Figures released to the BBC this week, under the Freedom of Information Act, show the number of teenagers with part-time jobs has declined markedly in recent years. Businesses wanting to employ children under the age of 16 need to apply for a local authority work permit. In 2012, 29, 498 permits were issued but by 2016 this had fallen to 23,071. Other statistics confirm the trend: a 2015 report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills found that in 1996, 42 per cent 16 and 17 year-olds juggled a part-time job alongside their school or college work compared to only 18 per cent in 2014.
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