South Asian Heritage Month: Roots to Routes in Burnley

‘Roots to Routes’ is the theme of South Asian Heritage Month 2025. As we work to unlock a generation of diverse talent, we’ve been talking to young people with Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage about their routes into the workplace. 

South Asian Heritage Month is an annual celebration of individuals and communities with origins in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. 

At Youth Futures , we work to understand and dismantle the systemic barriers to good work faced by Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people in the UK, as well as other groups of young people who are disproportionately not in education, employment, or training (NEET) for extended periods. Through our Talent Unlocked partnership with Business in The Community, we are focusing on the role of businesses to inspire, hire, and support ethnically diverse young people to thrive at work. 

We take a place-based approach, working to shape locally tailored solutions to the youth unemployment challenge.

One place where we’re focusing our attentions is Burnley: a town with large Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities; higher than average rates of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET); and high levels of deprivation (ranking 8th out of 314 in the most deprived areas nationally, according to the Index of Multiple Deprivation). 

What are young people with Pakistani and Bangladeshi roots saying? 

To help understand the reality in Burnley, we spoke to a group of seven Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people aged 16-21 about their experiences of looking for work. 

Between them, they highlighted unrealistic requirements for prior experience as a significant barrier in their searches to find work and begin their careers. 

Q. Nadeem, aged 21: “I always thought I was missing something in my CV — like there was a reason I wasn’t even getting to the interview stage. So many of us from the younger generation don’t actually get proper guidance on what the working world is really like. After school or college, we’re expected to have experience, but no one’s willing to give us that first chance”.

The young people also reflected on being rejected from opportunities with little-to-no feedback, or with ‘lack of experience’ again cited as the only rationale. 

“Everywhere you go they wanted experience, but nobody was giving the experience”. 

The young people also talked about a lack of apprenticeship opportunities, or a lack of knowledge about the apprenticeship opportunities available and how to access them – pushing them towards university despite knowing they wanted something more ‘hands on’. This echoes the findings of our recent research on ethnic disparities in apprenticeship opportunities. 

Abdur Rahmaan, aged 18: “Hands-on experience is a lot more valuable in job finding than certificates from institutions alone“. 

They also shared that a lack of flexible hours available meant they struggled to find work that they could fit around their studies, and a lack of cultural understanding meaning they were expected to work unsuitable shift patterns when they did enter employment. 

When we asked the group about their experience of interacting with employers, they shared that any interactions they had rarely felt meaningful, and instead felt transactional – with no time for them to really understand the opportunities available and the skills employers were looking for. The young people also reflected feeling that the skills they did have went unrecognised in their search for work. 

“On my CV I say I speak Urdu and Punjabi. I see this as a skill. But employers never pick up on it. Employers being able to see your unique skills fully so important”. 

Seeing is Believing in Burnley 

As part of our Talent Unlocked partnership with Business in the Community, in November we’re going out into Burnley with business leaders, helping them to see firsthand the challenges that Pakistani and Bangladeshi young people face when seeking work. The agenda for this Seeing is Believing visit will be shaped by the experiences shared by the young people we consulted, and we hope it will inspire business leaders to drive meaningful change for the young people in their local community.

Sandra Kerr CBE, Race Equality Director at Business in the Community: “Data from the Annual Population Survey shows that more than 65,000 young people who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET) are of South Asian heritage. As employers, we have a responsibility to ensure that no one gets left behind when trying to find and stay in work. The unfortunate reality is that racial discrimination can delay the recruitment of ethnically diverse young people, with research showing that South Asian women have to wait as much as two months longer than their White colleagues for their first job, despite higher levels of confidence.

In addition, many believe that their ethnicity has an impact on their progression at work, leading to poor workplace wellbeing. To ensure that South Asian young people are not left behind in the world of work, employers must make sure that they are reaching South Asian groups when advertising roles for recruitment and that South Asian employees are being supported in terms of their progression, through mentoring and sponsorship initiatives. Ensuring that South Asian and all young people are receiving the support they need to progress and succeed at work will reduce their likelihood of leaving work and becoming NEET.”