Stop blaming young people for being unemployed, says Amazon's UK boss

Amazon’s UK boss John Boumphrey told the BBC that high youth unemployment is a “system problem,” urging mandatory work experience for over-16s and closer partnerships between businesses, local government and colleges to close skills gaps. He said Amazon struggles to recruit technicians and mechatronics engineers for its increasingly automated operations, even as automation helped the company hire more staff. Boumphrey highlighted Amazon’s UK footprint — 75,000 employees across 100 sites (including 30 warehouses) — and defended its contribution to the UK economy, saying it paid more than £5.8bn in taxes and accounts for about 30% of online sales. Market impact: comments underscore structural labor-supply risks for retailers and logistics firms, potential recruitment-driven wage/skill-cost pressures, and reinforce Amazon’s economic significance in the UK.