Over recent years, a central concern of policy has been to drive up post-16 participation rates in full-time education and address the needs of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).  As a result, young people who enter work which is classified as ‘without training’ at 16/17 have largely been ignored (Maguire, 2010). This contrasts with the 1970s and the 1980s, when there was considerable academic debate about the composition of a distinct youth labour market (Ashton, Maguire and Garland, 1982; Ashton and Maguire, 1988; Bynner, 1990; Roberts and Parsell, 1992; Raffe, 1988; Furlong, 1992). Since the late 1970s, there has been a transformation of the labour market opportunities available to young people, with attendant changes resulting in a less easily identifiable and distinctive youth labour market (Maguire and Maguire, 1997).   

 However, the decision to Raise the Participation Age (RPA) for continuing in learning for all 17-year olds in England from 2013 and for all 18-year olds from 2015, together with a growing unease about the impact of the recent recession and continued economic uncertainty on youth unemployment rates, have revived interest in the ‘jobs without training’ (JWT) group. This paper draws on the findings from two studies: first, an evaluation of the Learning Agreement Pilots (LAP), which was the first policy initiative targeted at the JWT group and second, a qualitative study in three local authority areas in the North West of England, of young people in JWT and their employers.

The objectives of the research were to identify:

• The barriers to participation in learning among young people in JWT;
• Strategies which may be implemented to support young people in JWT to participate in learning;
• The barriers employers face in supporting young people in JWT back into learning; and
• The perceived impact of the introduction of RPA legislation on young people’s and employers’ behaviour and
• The extent to which policy intervention (the Learning Agreement Pilot) increased young workers’ participation in post-16 education and training.

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