Next boss warns over ‘dramatic fall’ in UK entry-level jobs
The CEO of Next has raised concerns about a significant decline in entry-level job opportunities in the UK, noting that the number of applicants per position has doubled in two years. Lord Wolfson highlighted that this trend reflects a broader crisis in youth unemployment, with nearly a million young people currently not in education, employment, or training. He also criticized government measures as disjointed and called for a cohesive strategy to address these issues.
- ▪Next's CEO, Lord Wolfson, reported that the number of applicants for entry-level jobs has increased from 10 to 19 per position in two years.
- ▪A government report is expected to reveal that Labour has not effectively addressed youth unemployment.
- ▪Wolfson suggested that economic growth is essential to improving the job market for young people.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — UK |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/may/26/next-boss-entry-level-jobs-lord-wolfson-youth-unemployment |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 2026 08:23:36 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T08:27:47.012Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T08:27:47.012Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 2cHX7OH9z3AB · 3 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Next typically received 10 applicants for every job in its shops two years ago, but that number has now risen to 19, said Lord Wolfson. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianView image in fullscreenNext typically received 10 applicants for every job in its shops two years ago, but that number has now risen to 19, said Lord Wolfson. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianEconomicsNext boss warns over ‘dramatic fall’ in UK entry-level jobsPeer’s comments come as Milburn report is likely to find government has failed to tackle youth unemployment Business live – latest updates Julia KolleweTue 26 May 2026 04.23 EDTLast modified on Tue 26 May 2026 04.24 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleThe boss of Next has sounded the alarm about a “dramatic fall” in the number of entry-level…
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