Entrepreneurial spirit could hold the key for young jobless

In 1987, Britain was still recovering from the devastating recession during which unemployment had top three million.

As the decade neared its end, two young musicians joined the dole queue and with few formal qualifications they knew their opportunities would be limited.

Mark Platts and Mike Scott had been signed to RCA Records, but after three years of living the dream, singers and label parted company and the pair found themselves back in Leeds.

“I had always loved music and being in a band was an amazing experience, but it ultimately had to end somewhere and it was a hard fall when it did,” says Mark. “We had left school with little qualifications and found it extremely difficult to get work. We were claiming £24 unemployment benefit a week and that was all we had to get by.”

They’d been out of work for more than a year, when the pair, along with Mike’s elder brother Phil were asked to produce a musical soundtrack for a corporate client. The job earned them £50, but it also sowed the seeds of a brand new business. Backed by The Prince’s Trust who put the three in touch with business mentor and venture capitalist Chris Marshall, the Mezzo Group was born.

Today, the company is still based in Leeds and now makes film for businesses, commercials and runs a retail TV channel, but the bleak conditions they faced back in the 1980s have also returned.

Amid reports of spiralling youth unemployment, axing of graduate trainee schemes and hundreds of applicants for every position advertised, there has been little to be optimistic about.

However, according to new research published by The Prince’s Trust today, the same entrepreneurial spirit which saw the launch of the Mezzo Group may also be returning.

The report says more than 40 per cent of young people in Yorkshire and the Humber believe they will be self-employed in the future, while more than one in three expect to be their own boss within the next five years. While only five per cent of young people in the UK are currently self-employed, but more than a quarter claim they are thinking of setting up a business.

“Traditionally Britain has lagged behind other countries in terms of the numbers of young entrepreneurs, but today’s report suggests that young people’s attitudes to self-employment are changing,” says Michael Hay, professor of management practice in strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School. “In the current climate, helping young people beat unemployment and set up businesses that employ other people can only be a good thing for the UK economy.”

However, the key remains finance. With many banks still reluctant to lend to existing businesses, securing loans to fund new ventures is almost impossible. Julie Dedman, from Mirfield, knows just how crucial that first foot on the ladder can be. In 1985 after being made redundant, she started a small milk testing company on a friend’s farm with a £1,000 grant from the Prince’s Trust. “The job market was not great at the time, so being made redundant seemed like the worst thing that could have happened,” she says. “You go from having a full-time job and thinking everything is fine to the next having nothing – but that’s life.

“There are many others who have been through exactly the same; you just have to make the best out of what you have. Rather than sitting and feeling sorry for myself, I realised there was an opportunity to open a business in an area that I was experienced in, so I grabbed it with both hands. Starting out was extremely hard, 1985 was a tough time for business, quite similar to how it is today and I couldn’t find any funders who were interested, in fact The Prince’s Trust were the only ones to believe in me. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to make the business work. It was years before I could even think about leaving to go on holiday, but you get out what you put in.”

A quarter of a century after going it alone, Julie juggles nine multi-million pound companies, from a surgical manufacturing operation which supplies some of the world’s leading eye clinics to a firm supplying airline meals.

“There are so many young people who are unemployed at the moment and that is a significant drain on the economy,” says Julie, who recently set up the Julie Dedman Enterprise Fund to support young women in the region. “Going into business is not for everyone, but it can be a successful way out of long-term unemployment and a life on benefits.”