UK retailers are backing Saturday jobs and other flexible entry-level roles as a way to tackle rising youth unemployment, warning that higher employment costs and changes to employment law could reduce opportunities for young people entering the workforce.
The call follows Alan Milburn’s Young People and Work interim report, which identified the decline of the traditional Saturday job as part of a wider erosion of routes into employment.
The government-commissioned review found that the “first rung” of the employment ladder has thinned, with more young people reaching adulthood without paid work experience.
For retailers, the findings highlight a tension between government efforts to increase youth employment and concerns that the cost and regulation of employing people are making some entry-level jobs harder to provide.
Retail remains a major route into work
Retail and its supply chain account for almost a quarter of youth employment in the UK, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
The organisation says around 780,000 retail jobs are held by people aged 16 to 25, representing 28% of the sector’s workforce.
More than 80 retail chief executives signed a letter to the Prime Minister in June calling for action on youth unemployment and arguing that retail should play a central role in the response.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said retail was “uniquely placed to support young people through flexible, entry-level roles and clear routes for progression”.
But she warned that the route into employment was under pressure from higher costs and regulation.
“The message from retail is clear: if government is serious about tackling youth unemployment, it cannot keep making it more expensive to create jobs,” Dickinson said.
The warning comes against a longer-term decline in retail employment.
BRC analysis of the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures shows that retail employment averaged 2.79 million in the first quarter of 2026. That was 66,000 fewer jobs than a year earlier and 398,000 below the level recorded a decade ago.
Part-time retail employment has fallen particularly sharply over the longer term. The BRC says the number of part-time retail jobs was 235,000 lower than a decade earlier, while full-time roles had fallen by 163,000.
The organisation also calculates that the cost of employing a full-time entry-level worker has risen by 10%, while the cost of employing a part-time worker has increased by more than 13%.
Saturday jobs decline limits early work experience
The Milburn review describes the decline of the Saturday job as part of a broader loss of flexible, part-time employment that young people can combine with education.
Some traditional jobs have disappeared as the economy has changed. Newspaper delivery, for example, has become much less common.
But the review also points to changes in employer behaviour, saying the economics of hiring and changes to the regulatory environment have made casual roles less attractive to offer.
The result is fewer opportunities for teenagers to gain paid work experience before leaving education. The review found that the proportion of young people who have never had a paid job has increased by 17% over the past 20 years.
Saturday jobs can provide more than an income. They give young people an opportunity to gain experience of dealing with customers, working in teams, following instructions and adapting to workplace expectations.
Dickinson said local and flexible jobs were “important first steps into work for young people across the country”, including Saturday jobs taken alongside studies.
The BRC says the decline in retail employment is taking place as the sector remains a significant employer of younger workers. Its figures show that people aged 16 to 25 account for more than one in four retail jobs.
The Milburn review, however, makes clear that the decline of Saturday jobs cannot be attributed solely to employment costs or regulation. It identifies several factors, including structural changes in the economy and shifts in employer behaviour.
Employment reforms put flexibility under pressure
The debate comes as retailers adjust to higher employment costs and changes to UK employment law.
The BRC has warned that the implementation of the Employment Rights Act could reduce the availability of some flexible, entry-level roles, including jobs involving relatively few hours.
The organisation says it supports stronger worker protections but argues that reforms need to be implemented without making flexible employment unnecessarily costly or complex for employers.
Flexibility is also important to many younger workers. BRC research found that 70% of Gen Z workers aged 18 to 29 consider flexibility at work important, rising to 73% among those working part-time.
The figures underline the importance of flexible employment in the debate over how to bring more young people into the workforce.
The government is meanwhile expanding its programmes to tackle youth unemployment.
£3,000 grant targets young workers
The Youth Jobs Grant, which opened to employers on 30 June, provides up to £3,000 for each eligible 18- to 24-year-old recruited into a qualifying job.
To qualify, the young person must have been receiving Universal Credit for at least six months and looking for work. The job must provide at least 25 hours a week and last for a minimum of four months.
That means the grant does not directly support the short-hours Saturday jobs at the centre of the retail sector’s concerns.
The government is also investing an additional £2.5bn over three years in its Youth Guarantee and Growth and Skills Levy programmes. The measures are intended to support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn or learn.
The government is expanding its Jobs Guarantee as part of the wider programme. It will offer eligible 18- to 24-year-olds who have been receiving Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months a fully subsidised six-month paid job.
The BRC has welcomed measures including the Youth Jobs Grant and Jobs Guarantee, but argues that their impact could be weakened if the underlying cost of employing people continues to rise.
It has called for a joint government-retail taskforce, lower employment costs for young workers and employment and skills reforms that support entry-level recruitment.
Dickinson said the government needed to “join the dots between tax, red tape, and its efforts to reduce unemployment”.
The debate leaves retailers and policymakers facing a common question: how to increase youth employment while maintaining access to the flexible, entry-level jobs that have traditionally provided a route into work.
The future of the Saturday job is therefore becoming part of a wider debate over how the UK can create more routes into employment while adapting to a changing labour market and higher employment costs.
“UK retailers back Saturday jobs as vital route into work” was originally created and published by Retail Insight Network, a GlobalData owned brand.