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Westfield White City is the biggest shopping mall in the UK and it is no stranger to crowds of young people parading through its halls. But instead of swarming the retail shops for the latest exclusive fashion drop, the hundreds of people in attendance this weekend are in search for something even more sought after and rarefied: a job.

The London job show is the capital’s biggest career event. It is held every year and hosts a range of employers from the Metropolitan police to car valet services. This year, the event is particularly relevant as unemployment levels have soared, with young people bearing the brunt of the crisis.

Demi Trowsdale, 24, has a degree in neuroscience and psychology. She has been unemployed for four months and estimates that she has sent off 170 applications online. Her aim is to work in healthcare but after being unsuccessful in applying for jobs in the sector, she has “widened the pool” of potential employment.

“It makes me feel less hopeful by the day, quite dehumanised. Mainly because of the lack of individual feedback that you get, it’s usually a blanket statement saying: ‘You’ve been unsuccessful,’” Trowsdale said

Figures show that 713,000 young people are unemployed. As of early 2026, the rate among 16- to 24-year-olds is 15.8%, higher than the general unemployment rate of 4.9%.

In London, youth unemployment rates are the highest in the country at 24.6%, with the north-east England second highest region at 23.5%, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

Although London is perceived as the employment hub of the country, the competitiveness of the job market has exiled young jobseekers with less work experience.

“Our insight shows that young people are motivated to work, but too often they are locked out of opportunities by a lack of accessible entry routes and employer expectations for prior experience,” said Laura-Jane Rawlings, the chief executive at Youth Employment UK, a nonprofit that tackles unemployment among young people.

This barrier to entry rings true with young jobseekers. Angel Simpson, 18, said has applied for hundreds of jobs and apprenticeships since she left college. “Even though you have the qualifications for it, there’s always someone with more experience than us young people. Because we’re just fresh and have nothing, we’re just pushed out to nothing,” she said.

The effect of employers using AI screening to process applications has left many young jobseekers feeling as though they are not being fairly assessed. Trowsdale said: “[I’m] not having a person look over the application and potentially see what I’ve got that might not come across through buzzwords over an application.”

Harvey Barns, 21, has been unemployed since graduating from university in September. He is at the jobs fair to impress potential recruiters and is wearing a suit especially for the occasion.

Out of hundreds of applications Barns has sent, he said he had only had three interviews. “They’re asking for a lot of experience and it’s only minimum wage. The cost of living is going up and with minimum wage you can’t afford anything.”

Barns added that the online job market was saturated with recruitment scams. “There’s a lot of ghost jobs. You’ll apply for a job you like the look of and you’ll hear back from a different recruiter and that’s not what you’re looking for,” he said. “It’s frustrating, the same routine, applying everyday. It’s not a nice market.”

The UK government have pledged to invest £1bn to help create 200,000 jobs for young people. Rawlings said this investment was “welcome and long overdue” but needed to “reach young people quickly” to make a change to their real lives.

“They can make a real difference if they provide high-quality support, paid work experience, apprenticeships and training linked to actual jobs. But funding alone will not solve this; delivery, local partnerships and employer engagement will be critical,” she said. “In London especially, transport costs, housing pressures and digital exclusion must be recognised as employment barriers.”

Kristoffer Demetris, 18, left college last year and wants to work in mechanical engineering. Previously, he worked for three months in John Lewis as a temporary sales assistant, it was the only job he had ever had. “I apply to at least job a day, I’ve probably sent off hundreds of applications. It does get very frustrating when you keep being rejected constantly,” he said.

“I was a bit nervous coming here because I was a bit nervous coming here because you have to present yourself and I’m not very good at that. But I think it’s a good thing coming here because you meet people, you see their face and you know that they’re not just a CV, they’re a person,” he added.