Thank you New Labour ! Unemployment rises and more youths than ever are out of work

YOUTH employment reached a record high yesterday as new figures showed the number of people without jobs in the UK has risen to its highest level in nearly 15 years.

Nearly 2.5m people are now out of work across the UK – an increase of 21,000 on the last quarter.

Of those, 9,000 are in Wales, representing 40,000 of the total.

Across Britain, the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work was 952,000 in the three months to October, a quarterly rise of 6,000 – and the highest figure since records began in 1992.

Total unemployment increased by 21,000 to 2.49m, the highest level since early 1995, although the quarterly rise was the smallest for 18 months. The UK’s unemployment rate has now reached a 13-year high of 7.9%.

The sad truth is that these figures show Wales is coping worse than the rest of the UK and in turn, the UK is coping worse than the rest of the world.

Unemployment among the under-24s is now running at more than 18%.

More than one in five working-age people are now economically inactive, including those who are claiming incapacity benefit.

The over-50s are also being hit hard by the recession, with many of those made redundant struggling to find new work.

The ONS data showed 620,000 people across the UK had been out of work for more than a year, the highest total since 1997.

Men in their 50s are being hit hard by the recession, with the number of long- term unemployed men over 50 nearly trebling over the past year.

Employers’ ageist attitudes mean many older workers simply aren’t getting the opportunities to return to employment, and research shows the longer it takes, the more unlikely it is they will ever get back to work.

An end to the working lives of men in their 50s will not only condemn them to an uncomfortable retirement, but will also deprive the recovering economy of their skills and experience, just when they are most needed.



British Jobs for British Workers.