🔵 Why it is getting harder and harder to hire young people into the music industry
Breaking down the issues preventing young people from getting a start
Here in the UK, I have had quite a few conversations in the last couple of weeks regarding Alan Milburn’s report documenting the rather grim state of employment for young people here in the UK.
I won’t repeat all of it here (click the link above for a solid summary), but in short, around one million people are filed as NEETs, which means they are Not in Education, Employment or Training. That number is also increasing. Apparently, only Romania was worse in the EU. Six in ten young people who are NEETs have never had a single job. That number was four in ten in 2005.
As a business owner, I was reflecting on this relative to my own experiences with trying to hire graduates or young people seeking their first roles in the music business, and I wanted to set that out here, partly to give an insight that I hope might even find its way back to the people in power, as a means to establish where the problems lie.
First, let’s talk about education relative to the music business. I will share a view that I have no doubt will make me unpopular in certain circles, but here we go: at Motive Unknown, we have never in fifteen years come across a graduate from the likes of BIMM, ACL, or other educational establishments offering music industry-related degrees, whose learning had remotely prepared them for a career in our company.
Motive Unknown is a marketing agency. Our role is to help artists, labels and wider businesses in the creative space connect with audiences and grow. In short, we help them make more money. Consequently, I don’t think anything we do is so incredibly unique that there can’t be a degree that adequately tees up the candidate to transition into a role paying a decent salary here at Motive Unknown.
Nevertheless, we are yet to come across any such degree that trains young people in the kind of skills we require, ensuring they would hit the ground running, as, for example, a marketing manager within my business.
We have tried reaching out to multiple universities on the basis it is a no-brainer that if we spend some time with a Uni, perhaps shaping a degree that would give young people these formidable marketing skills, we would essentially have a conveyor belt of amazing candidates graduating every year that we would have the pick of. (As would other marketing agencies, I should add, this is not all about us!)
Despite initial positive noises from those establishments, they all ultimately went quiet and stopped returning emails. We tried, but nobody was interested.
Alongside this, the UK Government does not, as far as I am aware, offer any kind of apprenticeships in which Motive Unknown would receive some kind of grant in order to take on young people and train them into the roles that we require. According to Milburn’s report, “for every £25 the Department for Work and Pensions spends on benefits for young people, it devotes just £1 to helping them back into work”.
To be clear, we used to hire people into assistant roles and train them up. Unfortunately, the rate of growth at the company meant that this was no longer a viable option, as it would take a minimum of six months for these people to be delivering any kind of return on the investment that is paying their salaries.
I feel it is also worth mentioning that we are a remote UK business. We have staff dotted up and down the UK, and something I am passionate about is that we have the potential to hire people who are not part of the more affluent London set who typify the new starters you find at most labels. I love that our staff are passionate music fans based all over the UK. Part of the reason I love that is because I feel we are a better company for having a mix of backgrounds, regional cultures, demographic diversities, and more. In marketing, I would argue all of that merely makes you a stronger business.
I don’t feel I am alone in this point of view. A couple of years ago, I was part of a focus group with the DCMS, which also included various other business leaders covering anything from distribution to production to label operations and more. Every person, without exception, voiced a massive frustration with the quality of graduates that higher education establishments were spitting out, along with the abject lack of paid apprenticeships that would allow particularly those from less affluent backgrounds to have a shot at showing what they can do.
The bitter irony here is that young people are the backbone of the music industry. Culture now moves at a more alarming rate than ever, to such an extent that I’ve seen people in their mid-to-late 20s claim that they’re too old to understand what’s going on. It is absolutely vital that we have a constant influx of young people bringing their perspectives and world views to our companies.
As things stand, I can only agree with Alan Milburn that we are leaving a huge swathe of the population isolated. Part of the reason for that is that businesses like mine simply cannot afford to hire completely inexperienced people. We can no longer scale that in a manner that doesn’t see us haemorrhaging money on training that I feel should be sponsored by the government, on the basis that it would provide long-term careers for these young people that struggle so much to get employed. According to Milburn’s report, for every £25 the Department for Work and Pensions spends on benefits for young people, it devotes just £1 to helping them back into work. That is absolutely insane.
Equally, though, I feel we are overdue a conversation about music industry degrees in higher education establishments. I would dearly love to see any kind of degree in which candidates learn the kind of skills that would make them highly desirable to an agency like mine. Right now, though, based on the applications we get and everything I see, that is simply not the case.
Again, I am keen to stress that I am not suggesting all degrees at these establishments are worthless. However, based on my own experiences and from conversations with others, I think there is a high instance of business owners feeling that there is minimal value in these degrees that people are going into tens of thousands of pounds of debt for.
We have to do better. By writing this, I am hoping that it will trigger others to make similar noises, because I feel the only way to navigate our way through this is to demonstrate, as business leaders, that we need more from both higher education and from the government to allow significantly more employment of young people here in the UK.
Ergo, if you are reading this and do agree with my point, please either share this message, or write your own. Either way, let’s try to take action to effect some change here, rather than allow an entire generation to go to waste.
Have a great day,
D.
🎧 listening to “Hardcore Soul”, a mix by Om Unit. The concept for this mix is absolutely ingenious. In it, Om Unit traces a lineage between the UK street soul sound and the early hardcore movement typified by the likes of Shut Up and Dance. The end result is a wonder; one of the most original mixes I have heard in a very, very long time. This is both a great listen and an exemplary slice of musical education and history. Fantastic stuff.
🎧 also listening to “Every Single Weekend ft Jamie XX” by The Avalanches. What I will always love about The Avalanches is that they, without fail, bring joy, every damn time. Whether it’s their own music, or their DJ sets that cement their position as The Ultimate Wedding DJs, they just lift my soul. This is no exception. Dive in.
📺 watching “Unite The Kingdom Rally - UK - London” by Paul Chowdhry. I can only admire the moxy of Chowdhry, who wanders around the far-right rally firing questions at the (oddly racially diverse) array of people attending. Really, all he does is hold up a mirror to those in attendance, but the effect is powerful. It’s a fascinating insight into the thoughts of those supporting the likes of Tommy Robinson - and it’s not all the small-minded racist goons that you might expect. Essential viewing.
Gleefully accepting music recommendations!
I do really enjoy getting suggestions for either existing music or forthcoming releases to check out. So, if there’s something you think I might like, do feel free to get in touch. Always keen to hear the weird and wonderful things going on out there. And, with 6000+ subscribers, I’m happy to spread word on things I’m loving too.
Amen - though in my experience it's always been the case that a music business degree means very little in terms of preparedness.
What’s changed is the music industry is increasingly hostile to new artists, and subsequently the new managers, labels, agents, marketers, etc that find their footing in the industry alongside them.
Yet another socialized cost to a music ecosystem that lets platforms and massive catalogs mediate the ability to build up the next generation (see e.g https://infinitecatalog.substack.com/p/thom-yorkes-ivors-speech)
I assumed all music business programs were like this. In my career, I never once met a someone I worked with who has a "music business degree." But I will say in the U.S., it is not like this. There are a ton of great programs that have their finger on the pulse: UCLA, Syracuse, Belmont, Berklee (where I teach). The role of edu is so different in the U.S. so many it's not relevant, but I do feel as though students graduate and can contribute immediately.