Exploring the experience, implementation and value of supporting young people towards employment

This thesis focuses on youth employment transitions, which are generally accepted to have become more complex, protracted and non-linear over time. In the UK, many young people face ongoing challenges in finding secure work. Youth unemployment remains an enduring feature of the labour market, along with newer problems related to precarious work and growing concerns around youth inactivity. Yet, policy responses have remained largely focused on narrow conceptualisations of employability based on supply-side orthodoxies and rapid entry to employment. More person-centred and coproduced employment support initiatives have, however, begun to emerge, although evidence on these approaches remains limited. This thesis contributes to the emerging evidence base on the use of these approaches as an alternative framework to active labour market policies. The overarching aim of the study is to provide new insights on the experience, implementation and value of employment support to young people. To address this aim, the thesis draws on evidence from the evaluation of a person-centred youth employment support programme in England. The main contribution comes from three academic papers, all utilising a unique and large-scale dataset on participants of the programme and drawing on the framing of youth transitions to explore this dataset. Together the papers explore the complex nature of modern youth employment transitions and the potential for alternative approaches to employment support to respond to this complexity. The thesis makes three key contributions to knowledge: it provides further evidence on the complex and processual nature of modern youth employment transitions; it demonstrates the potential for person-centred and coproduced approaches to create value, particularly for those experiencing the most complex transitions; and it shows the importance of adopting more holistic assessments of progression to assess these approaches, especially for those furthest from the labour market. Some additional publications are also discussed which extend these insights to other groups, underlining the potential for more holistic, person-centred employment support models to facilitate progression for individuals in the context of complex and dynamic labour markets.