After submitting 2,000 job applications and still failing to secure employment, young people in the UK are being locked out of the job market.

Translated by 36Kr Global, we focus on technology, business, career, lifestyle and other fields, introducing new technologies, new ideas and new trends from around the world.

Editor's Note: Around 1 million people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are not in employment, education or training, and they face more barriers than ever before. Several young people who have been unemployed for more than a year share their stories of how they get through the days. This is a translated article.

Getty Images/alexsl

After sending out 2000 resumes, he still couldn't land an ordinary job

Thomas rarely goes out. Apart from walking his dog, his only regular outing is a weekly trip to Iceland supermarket. Each time, he buys seven £1 frozen meals — mostly bland curries, and occasionally a bright, cloyingly sweet Chinese takeaway. For him, this shopping trip is somewhat embarrassing. "Buying seven at once, the cashier must be thinking: Oh, that's exactly one per day," he says.

But half the time, he doesn't end up eating all of them. "Sitting there, looking at them, I think, I don't want to eat this anymore, I've had it for two days in a row."

Like the other young people interviewed in this article, Thomas has been unemployed for more than a year. He is also one of 82,000 people aged 16 to 24 facing long-term unemployment in England.

Thomas lives in Warrington and receives £311 in Universal Credit each month. After paying bills and dog food, he is left with only about £25 a month. He is not lazy — he has been working since he was 16. His life came to a sudden stop in October 2024, when he lost his job as a pub manager. Since then, he has applied for about 2,000 jobs, but never found one.

At first, he was optimistic. "I applied everywhere, and never thought I wouldn't find a job," he says. But apart from the occasional generic rejection letter, more often than not, all he got was silence.

It's not just a regular diet that he has been forced to give up — his social life has almost completely stopped. When friends invited him out for drinks or to play paintball, he could only say no. "I'd say: 'I really can't afford the extra £30.'" Sometimes, he would lie that he had to stay home to take care of his dog.

After a year and a half of unemployment, this life has overwhelmed him. "I just want to live a normal life," he says. "To be able to go out, meet people, do things, and not have to make up excuses every time. To eat normal meals, buy a nice juice once in a while, and use better quality toilet paper. They're all really small wishes."

Unfortunately, Thomas' experience is becoming the daily life of many young people in the UK. Previously, the media has been warning that this could be one of the hardest times for young people to find a job. Last month, Alan Milburn released the first part of a report on youth and employment, and the crisis finally came into full public view. The report shows that around 1 million people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are not in employment, education or training — the so-called "NEET" group. If the government does not take immediate action, this number could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s.

Like many NEET young people, Thomas believes the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on his situation. Before the pandemic, he was studying while working part-time as a security guard at the Bolton Wanderers football stadium. Since he was under 18 at the time, he had to hide his real age. When choosing A-level courses, he picked three relatively safe subjects: history, geography and sociology, and ended up with grades of ABB. But when he applied for university, the UK, along with many other parts of the world, went into lockdown. So he stayed at his original college and continued studying health and social care. "I didn't want to spend £9,000 just to sit alone in an apartment and attend online classes."

During that time, most of his friends went to universities elsewhere, and his girlfriend left him. "We broke up. We both thought the distance was impossible to maintain." He feels he missed out on many life experiences that should have happened in his youth. "I never got a chance to hang out with friends, because we couldn't even go out back then."

Even some seemingly minor impacts still haunt him today. Before the pandemic, he was learning to drive, but when the pandemic hit, all lessons were cancelled. "My driving instructor later died of COVID." Now, he can't afford driving lessons, yet many of the jobs he applies for require a driving license.

Later, Thomas found that most of his friends had started new lives at university, with new social circles. So he left his hometown of Bolton in Greater Manchester and moved to Warrington, where he worked in a pub. It was then that he regained his long-lost social life. He joined a local pool and darts team, and although he was 20 years younger than his teammates, he slowly learned how to interact with people in a pub. "Before working in a pub, I didn't even know how to order a drink when I walked in. Then I stood behind the bar, watched others do it, and learned."

Apart from the pub, he also worked in a pharmaceutical warehouse, restocking automatic sorting machines. When online orders came in, the machines would send the medicines onto the conveyor belt. "I wanted to find a hands-on job, but my God, they wouldn't even let you play music there. It was just you and the machines all day." At that time, he could earn about £2,500 a month. "When you're young, you have no idea how to manage money. I never got the chance to go out when I was 18, and later, as soon as I had money, I kept going out and spent it all."

He worked in the warehouse for about a year and a half, then switched to an administrative job, but soon found it wasn't for him. "That job was so boring. I finished everything by 2 p.m., and the rest of the time I just sat there waiting." Six months later, he quit and went to work in a betting shop, but he didn't even last a month. He described it as "the most desperate place in the world."

He remembers once seeing "a father place a £300 bet, while his wife and child were standing outside in the rain. I thought to myself, I can't do this, this job is draining me."

Later, he found a job as a pub manager that included accommodation. But a year and a half later, the pub was sold, and Thomas, who had just turned 23, was unemployed again. He hasn't found a job since then. Now, he lives with his partner and his sister. His sister, who has a first-class degree in English literature, also struggles to find work. Apart from occasional shifts in a pub, she only does freelance work for an American company, proofreading AI prompts. "Shifts go to whoever grabs them first. She has to wake up at 3 a.m. to get work."

Thomas usually gets up around 10 a.m., walks and feeds his dog, then starts "scrolling through job postings online." Day after day repeats, and he feels "life is just slipping away." He has also tried the most traditional way — going to pubs and restaurants in town with his resume to ask around, but still got no results. He has also experienced some awkward online applications. For a retail position, he had to speak impromptu for five minutes in front of a camera and record his answers.

Last month, he dressed up in formal clothes and went to a job fair at a football stadium, hoping to make a good impression on employers. But when he got there, there were only rows of unattended booths with QR codes on them. "I stood there scanning them one by one, thinking this was ridiculous."

Although the job-hunting process is tedious and frustrating, he is still applying for jobs, usually about 50 every two weeks. One of his friends joined the army. If "something really big happens and I need a lot of money quickly," Thomas will consider that path, but his family has been discouraging him. As for what society should do for his generation, he thinks the government should at least "really look after young people for once." Although he "doesn't particularly identify with any political party," in his view, only the Green Party and Reform UK "seem to have actually put forward policies for young people."

Howard Williamson, professor of European youth policy at the University of South Wales, says Thomas' anger is completely understandable. "I'm 72 years old. We are essentially saying to young people, 'You have to work your socks off to support me and pay for my triple-guaranteed pension.' Today's young people are facing multiple crises, and the world is changing all the time. They worry about the cost of living, global conflicts and the impact of social media. At the same time, AI could make many jobs disappear directly. Austerity policies have also weakened comprehensive youth services. In the past, these programs were often the first stepping stone for young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to a stable life and employment. Now, young people are often pushed straight into the workforce before they can get enough support."

Williamson says the UK needs a "New Deal" for young people, creating a dedicated youth job market with plenty of opportunities of different types. "You have to put a hand on their shoulder, but also give them a push, to bring them into training programs with enough choices." The key is to give young people options. "If you force them into something they don't want to do, they will quickly disappear from the system's sight." However, he also admits that this will require "extremely large" investment.

Williamson understands why young people who send out hundreds of resumes and get no results are becoming more and more depressed. "The people who really keep trying may end up hurting their mental health the most, because every time they get hit straight back by reality. Eventually, they start saying: 'I don't care anymore.' It's a psychological defense," he says. The education system must help young people become more flexible and adaptable, like "chameleons" to deal with an unpredictable future.

From Oxford graduation to long-term unemployment, even the elite degree can't guarantee a job

No matter how the world changes, people might assume that graduates from Oxford or Cambridge are highly sought after by employers. But for 24-year-old Hannah, a language degree from the University of Oxford hasn't made job hunting any easier. Hannah says her mother grew up in Oxford and remembers a time when "recruiters would wander around colleges" looking for promising students. That era is gone.

Hannah has been out of work since graduating in the summer of 2024. "I didn't think it would be this hard. I graduated from the world's number one university in this major, but I can't find a single job. The gap between expectation and reality is huge."

Hannah went to a state school, "worked really hard at school," and later got a grant to go to Oxford. Her first year was heavily disrupted by the pandemic, but by the second year, she started to socialize actively, watching movies with friends and volunteering at a local school. She also spent a year living in continental Europe to improve her language skills, and got her first pay as an English teacher. But since then, she hasn't received a salary again. "Almost every real-life factor that could have stopped me from getting paid work experience happened to me."

After graduation, Hannah returned to her home village in the New Forest. At first, she saw it as a break from three years of "intense study," and didn't start seriously looking for a job until the end of 2024. She originally wanted to join the civil service, so she applied for public service positions first. After getting no results for a long time, she started "applying for any job I could do."

She almost got one once. A research institute in London was hiring, and it came down to her and another candidate. The whole process dragged on for "months." "I was really hopeful about this job, because it matched my skills perfectly." But in the end, the position went to someone with 15 more years of experience than her. "There was no way I could compete with that."

But whether she stuck to her ideal career path or lowered her expectations, she didn't succeed. She remembers someone suggesting she apply at a toy store. "They wanted someone to climb ladders all day and get toys off the shelves." After that, she was called in for a group task. Applicants were given a bingo card full of icebreaker questions, like "Who has been on the farthest holiday," and then asked to build a Lego model together. "We're not going to live together, there's no need to get to know each other first."

Hannah now lives in her village in the New Forest. There are very few people her age in the village — only her and her brother, who is also unemployed, are in their 20s. She volunteers at a local charity, organizing activities for families and the elderly, and most of the other volunteers are older than her. Although people sympathize with her situation, it's hard for them to truly understand how tough it is for this generation of young people to find a job. "Someone even asked me: 'Can't you just write a letter to the government and ask them to give you a job?'"

She stays in touch with friends online, but it's hard to meet people her age offline. She wants to learn to drive so she can go to the nearest city and meet new people, but she can't even afford driving lessons.

"I thought I would only stay home for a short time after graduation, and then go to work in London. That's what I wanted, because it seemed like there were people there, and life there." Now, she just feels trapped. "I used to be completely independent, living alone, and I could do everything myself. I loved that life. I thought after graduation, I would stay independent and really start my own life. But now, I can't even find a basic job. I just watch 1,000 people click 'apply' on the same position as me."

Hannah receives £316 a month in Universal Credit. Her mother is a teacher and helps out when she can. "Everyone I know feels trapped," she says. She is still sending out resumes, but the rapid development of AI makes her more uneasy. "Technology is taking our jobs, and the change is obvious. Now supermarkets are almost all self-checkout. When I was in secondary school, teachers told us that by the time we looked for jobs, there would be millions of new positions that no one could have imagined back then." She asks, "Where are those jobs?"

AI replaced apprenticeships, and business owners admit they played a part

In April this year, former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — now an advisor to Microsoft and AI company Anthropic — said AI is reducing job opportunities for young people. In January this year, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, issued a similar warning, saying an AI "tsunami" is coming. A survey conducted last year by job site Adzuna found that since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the number of new entry-level positions in the UK has fallen by nearly a third.

Paul Clapp also admits that he has, to some extent, contributed to the problem. He is co-founder and director of Priority Pixels, a digital marketing agency in south Devon. In the past, the company would hire one or two apprentices every year, but after starting to use AI 18 months ago, it stopped. Once the company mastered the technology, Clapp never hired an apprentice again. "AI isn't going away. Like it or not, it's going to change the world."

The company uses Claude, which is owned by Anthropic, most often. Clapp says Claude has taken over "all the boring, time-consuming tasks" that used to be done by apprentices. "Of course they find these tasks boring, but that's exactly what new people have to go through. When you're starting out, you have to do the basics, and the basics are often these boring jobs."

In his view, AI won't replace experienced experts. "It's powerful, but it's not a substitute." However, he also admits that AI could deny the next generation even the chance to get a foot in the door.

It's not just about cutting costs and chasing profits for businesses to stop hiring young people. As employer National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage rise, "the incentive to hire apprentices gets weaker and weaker, until you think, is it even worth it?" A report from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research shows that since the relevant policies took effect in April 2025, the real cost of hiring an entry-level employee has risen by about 7%. Clapp recalls that about half of the apprentices he hired in the past "performed really well" and "really appreciated the opportunity," but the other