Every year, like clockwork it comes, the traditional concern that the younger generation don’t do summer jobs like they used to. As the school holidays approach a politician is wheeled out to write a nostalgia piece about part-time jobs, and the ‘essential skills’ these offer. Holiday and Saturday jobs, you see, are the foundations of a successful career, with their promise of resilience-building and priority-juggling. Some statistics will be cited about businesses being desperate for applicants with ‘soft skills’, and on cue, media-friendly CEOs are trotted out to support whichever wayward minister has been handed the keys to the Workshy Teenagers wagon.
And so it was that in late July, Esther McVey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, wrote a comment piece for the Telegraph about the ‘cultural shift’ that has taken place — ‘young people’ are eschewing part-time jobs in favour of studying.
As far as I can remember, it is possible to do both.
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