One of the most noticeable differences between recently arrived migrants and the rest of the UK population is their age: migrants are more likely to be young. This implies that migration is an essential factor in many areas of public policy that concern youth, including education, training, and youth employment. Indeed, young people are a policy target group since the early decades of life shape individuals’s future results and the manner in which they participate in the economy and society throughout their lifetimes.
Migrants are often young when they come, either as young people seeking jobs or school or as adolescents accompanying their parents. Most young individuals whose
first or primary language is not English can also communicate well in English. They enter school with poorer educational proficiency but make faster progress, and the difference is nearly overcome by the age of 16.
Young migrants’ employment results differ based on their place of origin, gender, and age of arrival in the UK. Refugees in general are over 20% less likely to be in employment than the rest of the working-age UK population. African and Middle Eastern refugees will likely have more difficulty finding jobs (religious or racial factors – all other factors being equal). Refugees face additional barriers to entering the labour market than the UK-born population due to: a lack of understanding of how the UK job market works, language, and cultural differences.
KORI was born out of the alarming need for more dynamic prevention work, rooted in youth work pedagogy, built upon with research, learning partnerships and creative practice. Young migrants born in non-EEA (European Economic Area) countries
are more likely to complete a degree even if they arrived in the UK under the age of 16. However, despite having higher levels of qualifications, young migrants who are not in full-time education are more likely to be employed in low-skilled jobs.
Country of origin:Patterns of work and types of work were quite different for EEA vs. nonEEA migrants. Those born in the EEA had high employment rates (86%) but a relatively small share were in high-skilled work (26%). By contrast, young adults born non-EEA countries were less likely to be working than average (69%), but were more
likely to be in high-skilled jobs if they did work (43%).
Gender: Gender plays a strong role in the likelihood of working (particularly for non-EEA born), but not in access to high-skilled work. For refugee women, this employment gap is even higher with employment rates over 30 percentage points lower than UK-born women (UKborn women already earn 5.45% less than their male
counterparts).
Age at arrival: People who came before the age of 18 had similar job results as those born in the UK. adults arriving after the age of 18 drove the differences between migrants and UK-born adults in their twenties. This result for childhood immigrants is most likely due to a mix of variables, including language ability, UK qualifications, different expectations than recent newcomers, and local knowledge or networks (i.e. youth centers).
