How young creatives are coping in lockdown

19 May 2020

Create Jobs and Creative Society partnered up to find out how young people's employment and financial situation has changed since the outbreak of Covid-19.

We want to know what support young people need and whether those needs are being met. To do that we carried out focus groups with the young people we know and anonymously surveyed over 100 young creatives(58% of whom are BAME, 20% disabled) across London to:

• Determine employment and financial situations before and after lockdown
• Young people's knowledge of existing services
• What requirements there might be for any new support

Here's what they had to say...

The results

The survey focused on the impact on careers and work life which proved to be significant; 30% of people have been placed on furlough, 59% say lockdown has made them revaluate their career path, 74% of freelancers have had their work cancelled and will not be paid.

" I am now reliant upon online teaching and producing online content. Previously, I made most of my income from delivering music workshops."

The survey also found that half of young people’s mental health has been negatively impacted by lockdown. Unsurprisingly, those who are not in work and have been furloughed felt they were coping the least.

"I feel like it's made a lot of people stop to reevaluate thier current life position - what they aren't satisfied with and the changes they'd like to see made"

What is clear from the survey is that the guidance from government is not clear enough or reaching the young people we surveyed (58% of whom are BAME, 20% disabled). 32% are not eligible for HMRC financial support schemes with another 31% not being or aware of the help on offer or need help understanding if they are eligible. 45% of self-employed said they needed help to find out if they were eligible for support available.

This is increasingly worrying when we find that 57% of young creatives feel they are currently or will soon be financially unstable and in need of immediate assistance.

This may be why advice on finance/HMRC/Universal Credit was rated as a more needed service than legal advice on work rights and/or emotional support. However, services that we provide such as connection to industry and mentoring was rated as more essential than all of those, showing the importance of our work.

Now what

We will use the results of this survey to create new offers for young people and form new partnerships to better our work.

To start with, we're training our teams on support available to young people from HMRC and elsewhere in the creative sector and opening up our existing Employability Surgeries; one-to-ones that 18-30-year-olds can book for advice and guidance from a member of our team.

Find out more about our Employability Surgeries here.