Many families nationwide express dissatisfaction with Labour’s handling of employment, as securing a job seems increasingly difficult, and the motivation to maintain one is dwindling.

Parents with young children find themselves in a predicament where staying home and relying on benefits or a partner’s income appears more advantageous. This is due to exorbitant childcare expenses that often consume their entire earnings.

Since September 2025, working parents in England with children aged 9 months to four years have been eligible for up to 30 hours of free childcare weekly, available for 38 weeks annually.

Nevertheless, some parents feel overwhelmed, discovering that government assistance still leaves them with hefty nursery bills amounting to thousands of pounds each month.

Amid these challenges, many young Britons express a strong desire to work, but they face a job market with scarce opportunities.

In October, a historic high of 8.3 million individuals were receiving Universal Credit, an increase from 7.2 million during the same period the previous year.

There are more than 200,000 fewer under 35s on the payroll since Sir Keir Starmer came into power, with unemployment reaching 5 per cent. 

Thousands of companies across the UK have been forced to freeze recruitment or make job cuts because of Rachel Reeves’ hike on National Insurance.

The Chancellor hit companies with an increase in the rate which employers pay in contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April, adding £25billion to the amount they pay in tax and pushing many struggling companies closer to insolvency. 

Mother-of-two Hannah, who works in the military, said her nursery bill for October 2025 came to more than £2,000 – her ‘entire salary’. 

In a tearful video on TikTok, Hannah said: ‘We’ve just had our nursery bill for October 2025, to put both my children into nursery full-time, and our bill has come up to over £2,000. 

‘Both my husband and I work full-time for the military. Unfortunately due our posting being very far away from family, we are unable to get the support of family to help with stuff like childcare. 

‘With the funded hours and the tax-free childcare, our nursery bill has come to over £2,000. That’s my entire salary, so I’m essentially working for free.’ 

She added: ‘I work full-time for the military, in a well-paid job, and my entire salary has basically just gone on nursery and that’s it. 

‘So I’m paying for someone else to have my children, play with my children all day, for me to basically work for nothing. And they wonder why women leave the services.’ 

Another mother said she is still paying close to £1,000 a month in childcare even after her family’s 30 hours of funded support. 

She told her followers on TikTok: ‘Did anyone else find when they got their 30 hours funded childcare, that it didn’t really make a dramatic difference to their childcare bill?

‘I mean I don’t know what I thought I was expecting really other than I thought we might save a chunk of money, but the reality is we’re still paying close to a grand every month for our childcare.

‘I honestly think the biggest financial help to families would be a change to childcare costs in the UK – it’s just so crazy expensive and it doesn’t really even end when your kids go to school.’   

An NHS worker, who wanted to start trying for a baby this year, feared the £1,600 per month she takes home after tax and pension wouldn’t even cover childcare costs, meaning having a job would leave her worse off. 

Taking to Mumsnet – an online forum for UK parents – to share her concerns, the woman wrote: ‘If I was to return to work after maternity leave, nursery fees are around £1,700 per month for one child. 

‘I’m struggling to think what would be best: A, to return to work and pay my whole wage to them. Deal with the constant illness from nursery and never see my child. I am still paying into a pension, keeping my job prospects open. [Or] B, don’t go back to work. Financially it will be the same for our household pot.’ 

The woman added: ‘Either way I bring no money into this house and my husband would have to cover everything. 

‘I realise that it is not going to work out as 30 hours per week, for various reasons including the fact that it is 38 weeks per year.’ 

A Department for Education spokesperson said: ‘High-quality, affordable childcare is central to our Plan for Change, supporting parents and helping more children get the best start in life.

‘Coram’s childcare survey showed the difference the expansion to 15 hours was already making, with costs for families more than halved. And now, hundreds of thousands of families are starting to access 30 hours of government-funded childcare, saving parents up to £7,500 a year per child.

‘But we know there is more to do. No child should face barriers to their education because of their family’s finances, which is why we are delivering record investment in early years alongside wider measures like capping uniform costs and rolling out free breakfast clubs to protect household budgets.’

Among those who have been forced to give up their jobs due to the exorbitant cost of childcare are mother-of-three Michelle Martin from Belfast. 

The classroom assistant told BBC News earlier this year that she had to take a career break after the price of childcare increased from £45 per child per day in 2018, to between £70 and £80 now – giving her a monthly bill of £2,000.

Ms Martin, from Belfast, said: ‘I’ve been in the job for 14 years, it’s a job I really enjoy and a job that I think I’m good at, so having to make that decision to come out wasn’t easy.

‘I was quite upset about it at the time, the only thing stopping me from going back to work is the cost of childcare.’

Another mother, Chantel Targett from Swindon, went back to work as a recruitment business partner in September after having her child about a year ago.

She told the BBC that returning full-time would only make her £100 better off due to her daughter being in nursery – and she was instead now working four days rather than five.

Meanwhile, some young adults who work in poorly paid positions say that since starting their job, they make just enough money to cut themselves off from receiving much-needed benefits. 

Ellie, 23, said she would have been better off staying on benefits from the DWP rather than getting a job due to a ‘cruel quirk’ in the Government’s system. 

Centrepoint, a charity caring for young people facing homelessness, explained that a technical issue means young people who work more than 12 hours a week receive significantly lower Housing Benefit, meaning their job is costing them money. 

Ellie, who became homeless as a child and has been living in supported housing since she was 18, said: ‘I’ve always wanted to work. So once things settled down and I was in supported housing, I got a full-time job.

‘But then things started to go wrong with my benefits, and in the end, I would have been better off not working at all. I didn’t know this at the time – but working full-time actually makes supported housing unaffordable. The rent becomes too expensive.’ 

Young people who rely on supported housing receive Housing Benefit for their rent and Universal Credit for other bills.

Ellie told BirminghamLive: ‘When you’re working, Housing Benefit is reduced at a higher rate than Universal Credit. This means that a young person living in supported housing will actually lose money the more they work. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.’ 

A DWP spokesperson said: ‘People receiving Housing Benefit are always better off in work than wholly reliant on benefits thanks to the income taper, and we are looking at measures to incentivise work for residents of supported and temporary accommodation.

‘We’ve introduced the most ambitious employment reforms in a generation to modernise jobcentres and expand youth hubs while launching an independent investigation into the barriers preventing young people earning or learning.

‘This comes as we shift our focus from welfare to work, skills and opportunities so people have the support they need to move into good, secure jobs.’

Others young adults, many with university degrees, have told how they long to kick start their career but have been faced with nothing but rejection since starting to apply for jobs. 

Hubert Dratwinski, who has recently graduated from university and is looking for work, said this week he was rejected from a position simply for being unemployed. 

He said: ‘I literally just got rejected from a job for being unemployed. 

‘This recruiter called me up, and he was saying he’s looking at my CV, he’s looking at my employment history, everything looks nice.

‘And he asked me if I’m working anywhere at the moment. And I said ‘no, I’ve just graduated from uni, been looking for a job’. I felt him lean back through the phone, and he just kind of went ‘you see, we’re not really looking for anyone who’s not in a job right now’.’ 

In a video that went viral on TikTok, Mr Dratwinski added: ‘I was a bit dumbstruck of course, because surely, you’ve gone out of your way to call me, you’ve looked at my CV, you see I’m not in a job, and you’re a recruiter. 

‘What do you mean you can’t hire me because I’m unemployed?’  

Abdithe Somali, who also posted about his unemployment troubles on social media, said: ‘Why is it so hard to find a job in the UK right now?

‘All I’m going to say is, if you have a job that pays you, where you get regular shifts and all of that, please do not leave, be grateful.’ 

He added: ‘I promise you, there are people out there who would love to be in your position, as much as you might hate doing what you’re doing.’   

The most recent rise of 159,654 in total UC claimants between September and October is the largest monthly hike since June 2020.

Tory shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately described the figures as ‘shocking’ but added that it is ‘classic Labour’.

One woman who works in marketing told her social media followers that she has never struggled to get a job before until recently. 

She said in a TikTok video: ‘For anyone who wants to gaslight me and tell me the job market is absolutely fine and I’m just not applying good enough, […] tell me how every other time I’ve been out of work I’ve been able to get a job in marketing but with this market it’s been the [biggest] struggle I have ever had in my life.’ 

Another man on TikTok, who has only recently managed to find a job, warned the process of being rejected by so many companies can leave young people feeling like ‘they are not worth anything’. 

‘The job market in the UK is really not a joke right now, and I’m sorry to anyone that’s going through looking for a job because it is really hard,’ he said. 

‘It’s tricky when you’re spending all day writing CVs, writing cover letters, messaging recruiters to get ignored or told no.’ 

He added: ‘You’re getting rejected and it can become extremely exhausting and very depressing.

‘I think there’s only so many rejection emails a human being can receive day in and day out before they start to feel like they are the problem – they are not worth anything.’ 

And another woman, who is currently unemployed, urged those who have a job never to give it up, as they won’t find another one. 

‘If you have a job in 2025, just keep it, please just keep it, because there’s nothing out here for the rest of us,’ she said. 

‘The job market in the UK right now is literally so bad. So if you have a job right now, just keep it and hold onto it very, very tightly.’

She added: ‘I don’t even care if your boss hates you or you hate your job. Just keep that job because imagine being unemployed.’   

Others took to Mumsnet to express how challenging the job market has become – with some claiming the only way one can get work now is if they have a contact. 

One user told how it took a relative 18 months to secure a role, despite being one of the most ’employable people’. 

They wrote: ‘The most employable people are unable to get a job. It took a close relative 18 months and an insane number of applications. 

‘She has excellent experience and a stellar record in the exact area she was applying for jobs in. No gaps in CV (was abroad for a couple of years (working in same area) hence looking for a new job when she returned). Eventually got one through a contact.’ 

Universal Credit is a payment to help with living costs and is available to working people who are on low incomes, as well as those who are out of work or cannot work.

People in the ‘no work requirements’ bracket can include those in full-time education, over the state pension age, someone with a child aged under one, and those considered to have no prospect of work.

Some Universal Credit claimants are required to carry out certain work-related activities, such as attending interviews or actively searching for work.

DWP figures showed that the number of people in the searching for work category was 1.6 million in October while the number of working people on UC was 2.2 million. Both of these figures have remained unchanged year-on-year while the number with no work requirements has soared.

The DWP figures also show that the number of foreigners claiming UC is at a record 1.24 million, with EU citizens with settled status accounting for the majority.

It comes as thousands of Britain’s biggest jobless families are in line for five-figure windfalls from the taxpayer under Labour’s plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap.  

Sir Keir has all but confirmed the cap will be lifted in this month’s Budget this week as he seeks to shore up his faltering leadership against a challenge from the Left.

The Treasury had drawn up plans to ‘taper’ the payments to prevent huge handouts to the biggest families currently affected by the cap.

But, following a Labour backlash, ministers have now decided to abolish the cap in full at a cost of £3.5billion a year.

Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Steve Reed this week indicated that Labour could be looking to increase housing benefits at the Budget later this month.

Mr Reed told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that the Government is looking at the Local Housing Allowance, which determines how much housing benefit people get.

Asked if he was looking at LHA or had had any meetings with officials about it, Mr Reed said: ‘Oh, absolutely. I mean, this for a very long time has been a cause of concern in local government.

‘And while you wouldn’t expect me, and I can’t disclose the details of conversations I’ve been having in the run up to the budget, I will happily share that, of course, the way that the Local Housing Allowance works is an issue that we will be discussing both with the DWP and with the Treasury.’

A DWP spokesman said: ‘The number of people receiving Universal Credit has been increasing as we have invited tens of thousands of people each month to move from legacy benefits as they become phased out.

‘We’re determined to get more people off welfare and into work. That’s why we are stepping up our plan to Get Britain Working with the most ambitious employment reforms in a generation.’

In January, the Daily Mail reported how a rise in ADHD ‘sickfluencers’ has driven a surge in the number of people with self-diagnosed mental health conditions using a £69,000-a-year disability benefits scheme.

Thousands of people have been using the Access to Work scheme – which can hand claimants nearly £70,000 a year for support and equipment – following an increase in advice from influencers discussing ADHD online.

Through the scheme, individuals can bag free items and services including noise-cancelling headphones, Apple smartwatches and work coaches.

Dozens of users posted videos showcasing the benefits of Access to Work, which was launched to help deaf and blind people.