UK Youth Unemployment Reaches 16.2%, the Highest Since Late 2014, as Amazon's UK Boss Calls It a System Problem

A record number of young people in the United Kingdom are out of work — and it is not their fault, Amazon's UK boss John Boumphrey (John Boumphrey) has said. Official figures published this week put the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds at 16.2%, the highest since late 2014, while Amazon says it cannot find enough workers with the skills it needs, the BBC reported on May 22, 2026.

The numbers

The UK's overall unemployment rate rose slightly to 5% in the three months to March, from 4.9% in the three months to February. The 16-24 rate of 16.2% is the highest since late 2014. Nearly a million young Britons are not in education, employment or training.

Separate research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Tuesday shows the current fall in youth employment rates is approaching the level of decline seen during the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

"A system problem"

"We have to stop blaming young people," Boumphrey, Amazon's country manager for the UK, told the BBC's Big Boss Interview, adding that the education system was not "producing young people who are ready for work". He called for work experience to be mandatory for over-16s: "It's not a motivation problem — it's a system problem, and that requires a system response."

Amazon employs 75,000 people in the UK, half of whom come straight from education or unemployment, according to Boumphrey. The company has 100 premises in the country, including 30 warehouses. When robots were introduced in the warehouses, some feared they would replace people; "actually, the reverse happened... we ended up employing more people," he said — mechatronics engineers and technicians to maintain the robots, roles for which the company cannot find enough people.

What Boumphrey proposes

• Mandatory work experience for everyone over 16, which he calls "transformative".
• Teaching through placements the skills the curriculum does not: teamwork, communication, problem solving — "if you get a T-level student, they come in for a week, they understand the value of teamwork".
• Businesses working together with local governments and further education colleges on a regional basis to map skills gaps.
• Work experience programmes for people furthest from the labour market, including young people with learning disabilities and autism.

Other voices

Jane Foley (Jane Foley), managing director at Rabobank, called the youth figure "a horrible number". Hospitality jobs, where many people once got their first taste of work, have been "shutting the door perhaps on a lot of young people", partly because of minimum wage legislation and partly because of technology, she said. The Department for Education expects post-16 providers to offer work experience as part of their funding conditions.

Former Labour minister Alan Milburn (Alan Milburn), due to publish his independent review of UK youth unemployment in the summer, told the BBC earlier this year the issue was "a social catastrophe, an economic catastrophe and a political catastrophe".

The human side of the statistics

The BBC spoke to Andy Wilkins, 26, from Southend-on-Sea, who has been out of work for nearly a year. His £2,000 of savings have been used up on rising bills; his income is £400 a month of Universal Credit. The University of East London graduate has applied for entry-level jobs at Lidl, Aldi and Primark and been turned down by Burger King, Superdrug and Next. "I am desperate to work, no job is too big or too small," he says. The UK jobs market is weak overall, with young people particularly affected by cuts in hospitality and graduate schemes — even as one of the country's largest employers says its problem is the opposite: too few skilled candidates, not too few applicants.

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