Can't work, or won't work? The shelf-stacking dilemma

Mohammed is 19 and jobless. There are currently 1.02 million other 16 to 24-year-olds in the same boat (up 9.1% on last year), according to a parliamentary white paper published last week. Mohammed is clear about the kind of job he doesn’t want. “I want a better job than just working in a supermarket,” he says. Until that job comes along, he’d rather remain unemployed.

IGD wants to change this attitude, oft-repeated at an event it hosted in Birmingham last week. Mohammed was one of 100 young people invited to the lunchtime forum - and paid £50 for their trouble - in a bid to discover how the industry can help put unemployed youth to work with the thousands of jobs it’s pledged to create in coming years. How?

From 17 September this year some of Britain’s biggest food and drink companies - including all of the big four, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo and Mars - will open their doors for a week-long IGD-led initiative to provide free skills training for thousands of jobless young people and to showcase the opportunities.

The trouble is, the industry has an image problem. Few aspire to work in a supermarket or a factory. “We need to show people that working in the grocery sector is not just about stacking shelves,” says Guy Mason, head of corporate affairs at Morrisons. “Parents still say things like ‘if you don’t work hard at school you’ll end up stacking shelves in a supermarket’. We need to change that.”

That will be an uphill struggle, say some. Magda Harvey - director of Polish food and drink wholesaler and retailer Polish Specialities - says the problem runs far deeper than one of perception. Harvey, whose 20-strong workforce includes just one Briton (her partner), says so many British youths are unemployed not because they can’t work, but because they won’t work. “Look at the foreigners working in warehouses for Asda, Morrisons or Sainsbury’s,” she says. “You have to ask: wouldn’t it be easier to employ British workers who have no problems with communication? It’s simple. They don’t want to do it.”

Joanna Denney-Finch, CEO of the IGD, rejects this. “You can’t tar everyone with the same brush,” she says. “The young people I spoke to [at last week’s forum] say they need opportunities. Whether they were paid to be here or not, that wasn’t reflected by the discussions we had. I was struck by their ‘up for it’ attitude and their willingness to experiment.”

Denney-Finch says September’s event, which she’s seeking more companies to get involved in, will help arm youngsters with practical skills such as interview and CV writing techniques as well as helping to develop teamwork and confidence. Many of the jobless youths involved with last week’s event point the finger for this lack of skills at organisations like Job Centre Plus. “It’s just ‘sign this, sign that’ - they never seem to have time to talk to us about actually getting a job or training us,” says Ikram. Indeed, only one in six of the youths in Ikram’s group had heard of the government’s Train to Gain initiativee.

Employers like Sainsbury’s say they can help plug that gap through this initiative. “This is about looking at ways we can give young people confidence and skills so they can start to feel they have a part to play,” says Mel Worth, Sainsbury’s head of resourcing.

And maybe convince Mohammed that there’s worse things than working in a supermarket. Unemployment for instance.