Research Poster - Building Employability for Gen Z: Navigating the Challenging Labour Market Road
Hello! I'm Charlie, a Business Economics student at the University of Leeds.
For my Laidlaw Summer Research Period I looked at youth employability in the current labour market, supervised by Karen Burland Clark. The starting puzzle was a strange one: there are roughly 1.5 vacancies for every unemployed young person, yet youth employment has fallen from 1-in-7 in 2000 to 1-in-9 today, and the UK now has far more young people not in work or education than comparable countries. The jobs exist, but evidently they are not converting into youth employment.
Two findings stuck out. First, from both the literature and my own survey of 21 UK employers, qualifications have quietly stopped being enough on their own: what employers select for further are meta-skills like communication, adaptability and initiative, things picked up through workplace exposure primarily. Second, and more uncomfortably, access to that exposure is heavily stratified by class. Upper-middle-class students are around seven times more likely to complete multiple internships than working-class peers, before ability even enters the picture.
Overall, this work has pushed my interests towards labour markets, education and social mobility: how structural barriers get mistaken for personal shortcomings, and what universities can realistically do about it.
Full findings and references are on the poster. Feel free to reach out if any of this overlaps with your own work or just interests you :)
Hello! I'm Charlie, an Economics student at the University of Leeds. I'm drawn to questions at the intersection of technology, opportunity, and fairness within employment - and what it actually takes to level the playing field.
My research explores what employability gaps and challenges future generations [Gen Z and Gen Alpha] will actually face, and what educational experiences need to look like to address them. The central question within my research is what various tools could be deliberately designed to close this gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students - given that access to the internships, coaching, and networking that build professional capital remains deeply unequal. Having seen that inequality firsthand, I want this research to produce something actionable - concrete design recommendations for educators and institutions preparing young people for a rapidly evolving world of work.
Outside of research, I'm most myself when I'm playing and connecting - whether that's through football, padel, or a long chess game. I love travelling and new experiences. If you'd like to talk about educational equity, AI in education, or just swap travel recommendations, I'd love to connect.
