25. Employment in Britain.

The UK recruitment market is relatively subdued in comparison with the exceptionally buoyant conditions of last year, with the technology and investment banking sectors in particular showing a marked slowdown in activity. With increasing concern about the likely length and depth of the market cooling, recruitment projects aimed at large-scale business expansion have been replaced by a needs-driven approach to senior-level hiring.

Worsening economic conditions have led a significant number of companies to change the structure of their senior management teams, as they seek different skills to drive through the cost-cutting programmes and change initiatives needed to maintain profitability in today’s market. As a result, there is strong demand for high-calibre general management and finance talent in particular, with a premium on candidates with proven troubleshooting ability. Advances in technology continue to fuel the recruitment of commercially focused IT professionals across all sectors, as companies seek cost savings and business efficiencies by upgrading their technical infrastructure and “e-enabling” their businesses.

A significant amount of senior-level hiring activity is being driven by the venture capital firms, as they seek new talent to turn around ailing portfolio companies and take advantage of falling share prices to make investments, requiring new senior management teams. They have been particularly active recently in the biotechnology sector, where a plethora of new businesses has sprung up to exploit emerging technologies.

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In terms of specific sectors, manufacturing businesses, particularly those involved in export, are clearly suffering at present, with falling profitability and increasing numbers of job losses. While companies whose businesses touch on the technology sector have been hit particularly hard, other sectors, including house-building and infrastructure, are still turning in relatively strong performances, the latter largely driven by PFI-related projects. Across the manufacturing sector as a whole, senior management recruitment has remained steady, as companies ensure they have the best teams in place to see them through the difficult times.

The volume of senior level searches in the technology sector is down, with low market confidence, falling share prices and lay-offs across the board. There are, however, some areas of growth, including the area of third generation mobile operators and the ancillary businesses growing up around them, where financial investment and recruitment activity are continuing. There is also substantial activity in the convergent market, with cable companies looking for quality players who understand the potential of cable and are strongly customer focused, to help them bridge the gap between possibility and reality. As in past downturns, there is a “flight to quality”, with businesses with solid revenues and profit streams continuing to prosper, even in difficult market conditions.

In the financial services sector, the worst of the downturn has been in investment banking, where a tail-off in mergers and acquisitions activity and the effective closure of the IPO market has been countered only by the more positive performance of the fixed income market. The consumer financial services marketplace, on the other hand, remains strong, with companies continuing to develop their direct telephone and internet banking businesses and their wealth management capabilities in particular. There has also been a strong focus on reducing costs by upgrading technological capacity, creating opportunities for IT professionals and change management specialists.

The retail and consumer goods sectors are holding up relatively well at present, although the focus has shifted away from large-scale growth and international expansion towards improving profitability in mainstream businesses. The returning talent from failed dot.com ventures is being put to good use in the retail and fmcg fields, with candidates generally the richer for their exposure to the sharp end of e-commerce. Whilst expectations of the internet completely transforming the retail industry have disappeared, the shape of the marketplace has clearly changed, with future success dependent on successfully exploiting the full range of channels to market, including e-commerce, interactive television and WAP technology. Individuals with multi-channel experience are therefore in great demand, as are commercially oriented IT professionals, as retailers strive to keep themselves ahead of the game.

The pharmaceutical sector continues to undergo radical change, with large-scale consolidation and a growing polarisation between multinational companies and small, largely venture capital backed, biotechnology companies. As the drug discovery process becomes increasingly automated, marketing is coming to the fore as a key performance differentiator, with marketing specialists with direct customer communications experience in particular demand. There is also strong demand for highly commercial general managers and for non-executive directors to serve on the boards of new biotechnology businesses.

The government sector continues to seek a greater mix between public and private sector individuals, with keen demand for private sector talent in the areas of IT, finance, strategy and general management. The government’s pledge to the NHS of over £12 billion between 2000 and 2004 will fuel strong demand for information technology professionals, as much of the funding is likely to flow towards improving outdated computer systems.

In summary, quality individuals at the senior end of the marketplace will continue to find themselves in demand, with the emphasis now on proven expertise in managing change and reducing costs in tougher market conditions.

26. The Yount Servise in Modern Britain. In the United Kingdom youth work is the process of creating an environment where young people can engage in informal educational activities. Different varieties of youth work include centre-based work, detached work, school-based work and religion based work.

Throughout the United States and Canada, youth work is any activity that seeks to engage young people in coordinated programs, including those that are recreational, educational, or social by nature and design.

"Youth work" is defined as activities that intentionally seek to impact young people. This is primarily a set of loosely affiliated activities that have been defined, redefined, examined, and reinvented in subsequent generations.^[1]

In Ireland the Youth Work Act of 2001 states that,

"'Youth work' means a planned programme of education designed for the purpose of aiding and enhancing the personal and social development of young persons through their voluntary participation, and which (a) complements their formal, academic, or vocational education and training; and (b) is provided primarily by voluntary youth work organisations

Modern youth work often emphasises the need to involve young people in the running of their own services through a process of youth-led youth work. Historically there are a number of different motives for the development of youth work in the UK. Firstly early youth workers, often from the middle classes, were frequently saw working with deserving young people, as an expression of their Christian faith. Secondly there was a concern to instill a middle class set of values in working class youth (Davies 1999).^[6] Thirdly there was a concern for the moral and physical character of youth and their ability to defend the empire.^[7]

This early approach to youth work has actually been around since the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, which was the first time that young men left their own homes and cottage industries to migrate to the big towns. The result of this migration was an emergent youth culture in urban areas, which locally was responded to by the efforts of local people. Although with the formation of the YMCA (and later Scouting) organisations were founded whose sole aim was to address these issues, the emphasis was always on providing for young people.

A government review of the Youth Service, set up in November 1958 and chaired by Lady Albemarle, was published in 1960. It argued cogently for specific kinds of provision to be provided by local councils and ushered in a significant building boom of new premises for youth work. Often thought of as a golden age, the period following the Albemarle report was a time of thriving centre-based youth work.

Today (as outlined in the Transforming Youth Work document released in 1998 by the DfES) it is the statutory duty of all local government organisations to provide a youth service in their region. Also for the first time the youth service has national targets that have to be met with regard to the reach (initial contact) with young people, the number of relationships developed with young people and the number of accredited learning programmes achieved through the youth service.