Young people looking to gain practical workplace skills and knowledge should volunteer, according to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES).

The IES believes there are a lot of positives that can come out of volunteering.

Becci Newton, senior research fellow at the IES, explained: “You are doing something applied in the workplace. There are differences between volunteering and work and especially between volunteering and training, but young people are gaining practical skills in the workplace and developing employability attributes, as well as skills, and building their networks.”

She added that through volunteering people were brought into contact with people they previously wouldn’t have met; it gives them experience of what it is like to work within “authority structures” and helps them “better think” about their relationships with older adults.

Her comments come on the back of recent research from the Corporation for National and Community Service, which revealed that 62.8 million US adults spending almost 8.1 billion hours volunteering during 2010.