Youth, Precarious Work and the Pandemic

Abstract

While Australia has experienced low COVID-19 case numbers relative to other countries, it has witnessed severe economic consequences in the wake of the pandemic. The hospitality industry, in which young adults are overrepresented, has been among the most affected industries. In this article, we present findings from an interview and a digital methods-based study of young hospitality workers in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Newcastle who lost shifts or employment due to the pandemic. We argue that the participants’ ability to cope with the loss of work was mediated by the degree of family support that they could access, with some experiencing the pandemic as an inconvenience, while others suffered extreme financial hardship. Findings from this study show that the most severe impacts of the pandemic play out along pre-existing lines of inequality and marginality, causing the most severe consequences for those who were already most vulnerable to them.

Precarious Hope: Situated Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic from Undergraduate Students in Manchester, UK

“…Charlotte's account evokes the figure of the 'entrepreneurial self' (Kelly 2007): a self-managing, individual constructed in response to crisis and instability. Charlotte's positionality, which affords her relative security, supports a biographical account in which she 'takes charge' of her mental health and uses the time and space afforded by the pandemic to pursue her goals (Cook et al 2021). However, running through our reflections, we also find that this self-managing, responsible individual is at risk of being swamped and exploited by 'mentally and physically exhausting' systems and institutions, from the medical establishment to the job market.…”

“…Reflecting emerging research on youth experiences of the pandemic (e.g. Bengtsson et al 2021;Burns et al 2020;Cook et al 2021), education, employment, and mental health surfaced as key concerns. Across these interrelated aspects of experience, there is a shared sense of being let down, undervalued, and ignored by institutions and structures.…”

“…In this context, Cook et al (2021:15) suggest that the pandemic presents 'a crisis of precarious work itself'. Moreover, the pandemic has eroded young people's confidence about future work and careers and increased uncertainty among those undertaking key transitions, such as completing education (Cook et al 2021;Prince's Trust 2021;Major et al 2020;Beatfreeks 2020).…”

Making Sense of Intersecting Crises: Promises, Challenges, and Possibilities of Intersectional Perspectives in Youth Research

“…This is critical in the context of contemporary crises, which can be understood, through their intersection, to similarly exceed the sum of their parts. We might consider, for example, how the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, austerity, and precarity combine to shape the experiences of working class young people in the UK (see Nunn et al, this issue) and Australia (Cook et al 2021 ), or how racialisation intersects with financial crises to mediate employment outcomes for young people of colour (Eseonu, this issue).…”

Social-Emotional Education Prototype Modelling in On-line Learning COVID-19 Environment (SEEP)

“…COVID-19 greatly impacted young employees partly because the youth unemployment rates were already higher before the beginning of the pandemic (Borland & Coelli, 2021). Moreover, previous recessions demonstrated a significantly negative impact on young workers, forming a particular trend over time (Cook et al, 2021). Compared to middle-aged workers, younger workers have more difficulty in finding a job, can lose it more quickly, and cannot easily find a new job (Bell & Blanchflower, 2011).…”