Youth opportunity for budding business people working hard to create a career

who would be a young person today?

Three or four years ago, most people leaving school had every reason to look forward to a bright future. Now, they’re caught between a rock and a hard place faced with poor job prospects and spiralling university fees. If that wasn’t bad enough the latest figures show that youth unemployment has risen to a record high, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds out of work.

The Federation of Small Businesses has said that young people are being “shunted into the sidelines”, while the influential think-tank Demos warned last week that the ranks of the youth unemployed could swell over the next five years to 1.2 million. It’s a gloomy forecast no matter which way you look at it.

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But faced with a dearth of entry-level jobs an increasing number of young people are looking at the possibility of becoming their own boss. Business Link is among the organisations that provides practical support for those thinking about starting their own business, while The Prince’s Trust enterprise programme has helped more than 600 young people in Yorkshire and the Humber set up on their own since its launch in 2009.

Samantha Kennedy, The Trust’s regional director for Yorkshire and the Humber, says they have seen a sharp rise in the number of people coming to them for help and advice. “There has been a dramatic increase in the last year as a result of the recession. In the past, young people didn’t consider self-employment as a viable option, but that has changed now. We’re helping more people than ever before and the more funding we get the more people we will help.”

The youth charity’s enterprise scheme includes a free, week long course, that provides practical advice to would-be entrepreneurs on issues like tax and insurance.

“These are young people with not much worldly experience, they might not have had a job before or they may have been turned down by the high street lenders,” she explains. “A key part of the scheme’s success is that we link young people to a voluntary business mentor for the first three years, someone they can turn to for advice.” As a result, 59 per cent of businesses are still going three years after they started.

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But The Trust doesn’t believe it’s about finding the next Richard Branson. “It’s not about high growth businesses, it’s about lifestyle businesses that contribute to the regional economy. Many of these young people will be the employers of tomorrow and if a young person starts up their own joinery, or plastering firm and employs just one other person that helps reduce the benefits bill.”

Jennifer Levenston runs her own fashion label, Prodiga, from a single room above a jewellery store in Hunslet, near Leeds. Her bijou studio might not be in Paris or Milan but her unique dresses, jackets and skirts wouldn’t look out of place in the designer shops of these fashion capitals. The former Leeds College of Art student has been making her own clothes ever since was given a sewing machine as a Christmas present when she was 14. Then two years ago she spent a summer studying fashion in Milan. “That’s when I knew that I definitely wanted to run my own business,” she says.

Jennifer, who has just turned 21, used money she saved while working in a clothes shop along with a loan from her mother to get started. “It was scary to begin with because I’d invested my savings into the business, so God forbid that it failed.” Far from fail, her business is thriving. She designs everything herself, from wedding dresses to stylish work outfits, and has a growing clientele that includes a London fashion boutique.

Next year she is planning to bring out a menswear range and hopes to branch out into homewear and interior design. “It’s going well at the moment, but everything I earn goes straight back into the business so that it can keep on growing.”

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Jennifer has worked hard to get where she is – a six-day working week is normal – but she knows how difficult it is for young people these days. “Before I started my own business I was applying for around 200 internships a year to try and get some experience, but about 90 per cent didn’t even get back to me because so many people were going for them. Sad as it is I think it still comes down to who you know.”

However, setting up on your own isn’t easy. It’s estimated that only one in every 20 people who wants to become their own boss actually manages to set up a successful business. To even stand a chance of making it you need passion and determination – something Ami Cluderay has in abundance. The 25-year-old set up Acres Hall Stables, in Pudsey, a small family-run yard, two years ago. Ever since she was a child she wanted to have her own riding school and when a friend spotted a small holding up for rent she seized the opportunity. “It was a bit run down, paint was peeling off the fences and the stables needed repairing, but I loved it.”

She used the money she made working at an equestrian centre in Bingley to rejuvenate the site, which includes 11 stables, a riding arena and a field. “I used my own savings to revamp the yard and paddocks and buy two ponies so that I could start doing riding lessons. I made flyers myself and handed them out to schools and put them through people’s letterboxes.”

Ami runs the yard herself and her parents, Keith and Linda, muck in whenever they can. The business has proved a big success and she now has five horses and plans are in the pipeline to expand the stables and create a new all-weather, floodlit arena. However, looking back she says it was a struggle getting off the ground. “I was lucky that I had savings otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get started. I couldn’t get any kind of grant because I didn’t seem to qualify for some reason. But Business Link were a saviour and they’ve given me lots of advice and support when I’ve needed it.”

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Oliver Guest, a 22-year-old from Bradford, found himself facing an uncertain future after losing his job two years ago during the height of the recession. “In the space of a month I qualified as a joiner after a four year apprenticeship, celebrated my 21st birthday and was made redundant,” he says.

Losing his job came out of the blue and when he went on a Government website to check out his future job prospects, it made grim reading. “When I started my apprenticeship in 2005 I clicked on the words ‘joiner’ and ‘Bradford’ and there were a hundred jobs, but when I tried again after losing my job it came up with three. I went into the trade because I’d heard so many people saying there was a real shortage of fitters and joiners in this country, so it came as a real shock.”

Oliver was unemployed for four months but was reluctant to sign on. “I felt that once you do that you end up stuck in a routine, even though at the time there weren’t any jobs. I sold my car so that I could afford to live but eventually I had to take the job seeker’s allowance.”

Then somebody told him about Bradford Kickstart, a council run scheme to help new businesses, and from there he went on The Prince’s Trust enterprise course, which convinced him to start his own firm. “It seemed like the next logical step. There weren’t any jobs to go for but I thought people still needed work doing even if there was a recession,” he says.

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It took him about six months to get going. “It’s not just a case of starting straight away, it’s a lengthy process, you have to get a business loan and sort out insurance and things like that.”

He used a start up loan to buy a van and since setting up OG Joinery last spring the work has been steadily coming in. “It’s going really well, since the start of January I haven’t had a single day off and I’m booked up until the middle of April.” He believes more young people should consider starting their own business.

“It’s very difficult for young people especially for those coming out of school right now, but there are opportunities for work out there. I don’t want to sound like the next Alan Sugar but it’s up to the individual. I think too many people rely on working for someone else rather than taking the plunge and working for themselves. It’s scary and you have to work very hard, a lot harder than if you were working for someone else, but it’s worth it.”

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