Young people's employment: the annual IRS survey - Recruiters of young people face a tabour market that is changing in all its aspects, according to our latest annual study of the recruitment, training and reward of younger workers. Not only have the numbers of youngsters entering the world of work been fluctuating in recent years, but there have been concerns about their abilities and motivation. In turn, this has led to repeated attempts to improve the quality of state education and publicly-funded vocational training programmes. Regulation has become a pressing issue, with new rights being enacted in respect of working time, minimum wages and time off for training. In the pipeline are further reforms to such key aspects of the youth tabour market as state education, GNVQS, Modem Apprenticeships and National Traineeships. Ultimately, the Government would like to see a situation where all teenagers are engaged in formal learning - ideally, in academic institutions or, otherwise, in jobs or programmes that provide a formal training contract. These are some of the background issues that we examine as part of this year's study of the youth labour market, based on information supplied by 110 employers, supplemented by a review of developments and research findings, and case studies of three organisations. However, our main focus concerns employers' practice in respect of their recruitment of young people, the impact on them of recent legislation, their training practices, and their involvement with Modern Apprenticeships, the New Deal and other government schemes. We conclude with an analysis of employers' reward practices.