Kiss Insight

YOUNG PEOPLE, THE RECESSION AND WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT 20 October 2009

It’s now getting towards the end of 2009 and with the credit crunch away from the headlines but still hitting our back pockets we wanted to look at how our listeners are feeling after nearly a year in the recession.

When the recession first hit there was a lot of information and statistics that tried to pin down who was spending what and where. Here at Kiss Confidential we explored these issues and found young people to be the least affected, if at all. It’s now a year down the line and young people are finding themselves out of education and thrown into a sparse job market. Dwindling career opportunities and the financial difficulties of life without work are seeing young people making sacrifices, the recession is now a very real part of their lives.

Here at Kiss confidential we don’t want to tell you stats that you already know, so we looked at the recession from a young and older perspective in order to make comparisons that revealed the truth behind the perceptions of who is getting affected and why. We sought to find out what’s important to young people in a changing economic and political climate. Also, from a commercial point of view, we found out just who is getting it right in persuading our listeners to part with their ever more precious pennies.

We spoke to 600 young consumers around the the 15-24 age range as well as speaking to over 200 older consumers to get an older perspective. Breaking our results down, we looked at all those under 25 and all those over 25, getting to the bottom of what difference age makes.

Before we started our research an interesting statistic from the Prince’s Trust emerged. More than 450,000 under-25s in the UK currently claim jobseeker’s allowance and this figure has risen by 80% in the past year. This statistic alone points to major problems for young people in the current climate.

When the credit crunch started our own research showed that just 30% of our young listeners considered themselves ‘really worried’ about their future, 15% lower than our 25+ respondents. Now we see 68% of under 25s actively making sacrifices in the credit crunch in order to stay financially afloat. What’s more significant is that this figure is within 1% of the results for our over 25s. Young people may have had a delayed recession, but they are now feeling its sting.

Last year when we carried out research on the credit crunch, 50% of under 25s were happily in a job and 30% were students who said they would soon be ready to job seek. Our latest research shows that 64% are worried about finding a job. Couple this with the Prince’s Trust research and the struggle young people are facing is very apparent. In this now competitive job market, experience is not on their side.It’s not only careers that are concerning under 25s, a year ago luxuries were the top cut back for under 25s. 69% claimed this to be their main method of financial management. Now sacrifices have become more specific as well as significant, the simple loss of a luxury is not enough and only 12% are now doing this to combat money problems.

When young people do part with their money, their criteria for spending is notably different from those of the over 25s. You can download the full presentation below which will outline the specifics if you are intrigued to find out what’s important when under 25s do flash the cash.

We mentioned earlier that we wanted to dispel a few myths and assumptions about young people. To do this we needed to get the bottom of what these assumptions were. The extensive list of questions below are only a few of the many questions that over 25s would like to ask the youth of today.

These questions read like a rant for Mr Meldrew himself but worryingly reflect general opinion about young people today and are excellent examples of the negative assumptions that hinder our young people.Young people are well aware of these presumptions and know that they are seen as faceless ‘hoodies’. What’s more significant about these questions is that they have no truth behind them. When asked 62% of young people said they had respect for the police, a figure that is 12% lower for people over 25. It’s quite apparent from our research that young people have a lot more respect for themselves and others than they their elders would believe, and these views are helping change the political future of our country.

I have only touched on some of the statistics that make for an interesting insight into the youth of today so to find out how much respect young people have for politicians, parents and their bosses, as well as finding out which companies have got it right and talk to them on their level, download the presentation below. To add to this, you’ll find out what is the most important part of a young person’s life and how their concerns don’t really differ from those of the over 25s. And if that isn’t enough to entice you then perhaps you may be interested to know which of the following women were awarded the number one status as a role model for the youth of today.

YOUNG PEOPLE, THE RECESSION AND WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT (8561 kb)