Enjoying your job is not a human right

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Brace yourself, but I don’t mind Michelle Obama. Sure, she might prattle on about the evils of white, corporate America too much for my liking, but the former First Lady certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and this was on full display at this week’s SXSW festival in London.

Addressing the crowd, Obama warned young people that their expectation of immediate career satisfaction – the ‘dream job’ – was not only unrealistic, but ill-advised. Enduring workplace unfairness, megalomaniacal managers and mundane tasks builds resilience, she argued, and I’m inclined to agree. Aged 17, I loathed having to work in a butcher’s shop that summer, but I have no doubt that I was hardened to the world of work in a way my more cosseted peers weren’t after weathering the owner’s atrocious jokes, the low pay and the stench of meat clinging to my clothes and hair.

It’s one thing for my fellow young people to shout and stomp about what they believe an employer should provide for them, but it’s quite another when the state starts to listen. This Government has done just that, and it’s costing Britain’s youth dearly. 

Last week, shocking figures were released detailing the extent of the joblessness crisis among the young. Over a million young people aged 16-24 in Britain are classed as not in education, employment or training (NEET). Accompanying the stats was a report authored by former health secretary Alan Milburn, which Keir Starmer described as ‘sobering’. He’s not wrong. The review reveals that 60% of NEETs have never had a job, despite the fact that 84% of NEETs surveyed want a job or training. 

Alongside the Covid pandemic, the emergence of artificial intelligence and worsening mental health among young people, Milburn also cites certain Government policies – primarily raising the minimum wage by 4.1% – as having contributed to this crisis. 

Although Milburn has reason to be coy when analysing his party’s impact on unemployment, the minimum wage hike is by no means the Government’s only detrimental policy in this area. 

Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Act – which places a suite of new burdens on businesses including beefed up powers for trade unions and various day-one rights – has already corroded the labour market. In some respects you’ve got to hand it to the young: alongside the unions, they have successfully lobbied the Government into giving them what they want – a cushioned working environment which caters to their every need. But what they didn’t expect was for the employers of Britain to turn around and say, ‘okay then, we just won’t hire you’. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said that more than a third of British employers are now planning on scaling back their hiring because of the Government’s new regulation, and half are anticipating greater workplace conflict. Who can blame them? The Centre for Policy Studies has calculated that the minimum wage rise plus the new employment rights legislation means that it is now £2,367 more expensive to hire a worker on the minimum wage than it was in 2024. Even the Government accepts that this is a profoundly expensive measure, with its own impact assessment (which was ruled inadequate by its own watchdog) putting the cost of the measures to businesses at £5 billion.

Despite the obvious costs, the Government is determined to push on in its war on employers – it was reported this week that Labour will go ahead with its crackdown on zero-hours contracts. In a consultation published on Tuesday, the Government said that it expects workers to be given a new contract which provides ‘a baseline of security and predictability’. 

Like so much of the debate in this field, the Leftie labour market activists have the upper hand because the language they use sounds undeniably reasonable. What kind of amoral fat cat would want to deprive workers of their security? Sadly, there’s no room for nuance in this framing.

Returning to Obama’s analysis, working on a zero-hours contract can indeed be precarious at times and the chances are you wouldn’t want to spend your entire career on one, but the truth is that they’re crucial for young people – particularly students – across the country. Hence why business leaders like Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, are warning Labour that if they make these rules too onerous, ‘many of those entry-level jobs won’t be there in the future’. 

Despite having promised to take a more pragmatic approach to business in the build up to the general election, Labour have done the opposite. Like the children whose demands for the workplace they’ve genuflected to, the Government has taken the simplistic view that so many Labour politicians have throughout the years: that employers are only out for themselves, and will treat their workers as badly as possible if they’re allowed to get away with it. In a mature economy like ours, this simply is not true. Yet, as Obama so eloquently put it, being treated decently by your employer does not guarantee that the work is fun or necessarily pleasant. Enjoying your job is not a human right, and the sooner Britain’s teenagers – and politicians – appreciate this, the better.

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