In 2016, young people in the UK voted overwhelming to remain in the EU. Yet many of the hardships linked to leaving are now being felt disproportionately by young people – particularly through employment and education. We may look at a ‘lost generation’, as a recent report by former minister Alan Milburn warned.

Ten years on from the referendum to leave the EU, headlines like these are perhaps not entirely coincidental. 

UK employment law and youth employment schemes were reshaped by joining the EU. Being part of the EU meant that our approach to labour law shifted from a laissez-faire, contract-based approach to one rooted in social rights. Whilst education falls predominantly within the Member States’ competences, EU schemes such as Erasmus also widened the possibilities for many students.  

The Milburn Report, however, found that today, 1 in 6 young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training. Young people’s ‘opportunities are not growing, they’re shrinking’, it said. This sense of loss throughout the report also includes the loss of EU opportunities – and is perhaps reflective of the fact that 3 in 5 gen Z Britons would like the UK to rejoin. 

Many of the responses to the Milburn report mirror the discussions being had by our neighbours. One area where the EU is currently legislating is internships (aka ‘traineeships’). These are work and learning opportunities aimed at providing a bridge between education and work. If the EU bans unpaid internships, will the ‘Brussels effect’ mean this de facto happens in the UK too? Will the UK rely on a contract-based approach to regulating these, or stick with a more social rights model, adopted whilst in the EU? And without the ease of cross-border internships, or the equivalent of the EU’s Youth Guarantee, does this ultimately contribute to a sense of ‘shrinking’ opportunity?

Given that the young people of voting age today were not able to cast their vote during the referendum, it is hard to ignore what this ‘lost generation’ has indeed lost out on. 

Joanna Helme is Lecturer (Teaching) in EU Law at the UCL Faculty of Laws.

Note: The views expressed in this post are those of the authors, and not of the UCL European Institute, nor of UCL.

Image: Anti-Brexit March – London, 23 March 2019, Sian Burkitt, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.