The Youth Labour Market in Britain: The Role of Intervention.

Abstract

This book examines successive British government policies on the vocational education and training (VET) of young people and the effects of these policies on the supply and demand for labour and the functioning of the labour youth market. Deakin takes both an analytical and an historical perspective and uses human capital theory and the economic theory of training in his research. The book contains the following chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) Demographic structure, capacity and economic activity; (3) Supply to the youth market; (4) Vocational and educational training in historical perspective; (5) Direct government interventions: early schemes; (6) The development of the modern system of youth training; (7) The first stage in the vocational education and training sequence; (8) Methodology of assessment; (9) An assessment of the economic effects of the Youth Training Scheme upon employment and employers; (10) Some macroeconomic effects of YTS; (11) The skill attainments of YTS trainees in relation to the demand for skilled labour; (12) The devolution of intervention and the movement towards quasi-markets; (13) Some critics of the government's youth training intervention; (14) Collaboration and opposition from trade unions; and (15) Results and conclusions. There is an appendix on resource endowment covering land, energy, other natural resources and engagement in export trade, and a comprehensive bibliography.