This week’s headline which caught my attention was “youth unemployment is above one million for the first time since 1986”. Many commentators are talking of the “lost generation”. Whilst UK youth unemployment at 21.9% is better than Spain (44.3%), Greece ( 36%) and Italy (28.6%), it is worse than France (20.6%), Germany (8.1%) and the Netherlands (6.9%).
In the appendix below, I have provided links to much of the media coverage of this alarming story. Key themes include:
- A “lost generation” of young people are at risk of debt, panic attacks, depression, self-loathing
- Long term unemployment (out of work for a year or more) surged by 31,000 over three months, with approaching a half a million people unemployed for two years or more representing a 29% increase in a year
- Number of foreign-born workers jumps 181,000 in a year
- Evidence emerging of a deteriorating north/south divide, with the largest decrease in employment being in the North East, with the only regional improvement being in the South West
- Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister cited the Euro-zone crisis as being responsible but this position was very widely challenged
- Prime Minister, David Cameron calls an emergency breakfast meeting with representatives of the UK big Private Sector employers
- Business leaders say they prefer workers born abroad because of the lack of basic skills in UK workers
- The British Chamber of Commerce highlighted that school leavers and graduates with “fairly useless degrees” were unemployable because of the lack of basic skills, clarifying that it’s the education that is at fault not the individuals
- The Government responded with a new scheme to give small firms £1,500 cash incentive for hiring an apprentice for the first time
- The age group has been seriously negatively impacted by two critical policy changes: (1) the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance), a benefit paid to under 19s to encourage them to stay in full-time education has been abolished; and (2) the mandatory education participation age is rising from sixteen to eighteen during this parliament, a Labour policy implemented by the Coalition Government
The statistics confirm that the Private Sector is not creating jobs sufficiently quickly to replace those lost in the Public Sector in the drive for austerity.
My personal view is that the statistics only tell a part of the story, in their detached objectivity. If you are a family with unemployed youths, or indeed are one of those statistics and are unemployed, the reality is often much worse, driven by fear, anxiety and desperation. It is necessary for policy makers to get closer to the subjective reality – this is quite difficult for ministers from privileged backgrounds, like the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or the Chancellor. Inviting big business cronies to emergency breakfast meetings probably provides little encouragement to unemployed youth nor their families. Meanwhile, doors remain open for privileged young people in terms of gaining work experience. Major universities have made enormous advances in attracting students from less advantaged backgrounds, and it now perhaps about time that employers did the same.
Sadly, many of the opportunities that are classified as work experience are probably inappropriate in building youngers’ future lives. Have you looked into the eyes of many of the youngers stacking shelves in your local supermarket? Unfortunately, successive UK Governments of both left and right have not given any time to industry policies like in France or Germany. Some argue that the Government should be encouraging growth in manufacturing – personally, I think that it is a generation too late.
The policy challenge is surely that we need a new generation of “skilled jobs”, not a national expertise in stacking supermarket shelves, whilst the skilled jobs are increasingly going to foreigners – so perhaps there is an urgent case to look at immigration policies?
Perhaps, David Cameron should take a leaf out of the new Italian Prime Minister’s book (an unelected technocrat), and start bringing technocrats into his Government? Certainly, a number of Government ministers do not seem to have the right blend of education, real world experience and tenacity to deal with deteriorating trends?
APPENDIX
MEDIA COVERAGE
- Graphic:
#unemployment and youth unemployment since 2001 http://tgr.ph/sDfVoU – Daily Telegraph News
- Number of foreign workers employed in the UK has risen by almost 150,000 even as
#unemployment increased http://tgr.ph/scVdVW – Daily Telegraph News
- Youth
#unemployment level ‘shocking’, say unions and business groups who today joined forces to call for urgent action http://ind.pn/vP35B8 – The Independent
- Foreign workers take yet more UK jobs (as number of Britons in work plunges and youth unemployment hits 1million) http://bit.ly/rZaaTA – Daily Mail Online
- Youth unemployment in the UK has risen to a record high of over a million – official figures http://bbc.in/bsYxBA – BBC Breaking News
- Youth Unemployment Hits Record Million http://bit.ly/tPJ9s4 – Sky News
- The Business podcast: a million young people unemployed http://gu.com/p/33dtt/tw – The Guardian
- Youth unemployment mapped http://gu.com/p/33dd9/tw – The Guardian
- Coalition sheds crocodile tears over young jobless http://gu.com/p/33dcq/tw – The Guardian
- Youth unemployment hits 1 million http://gu.com/p/33d7b/tw – The Guardian
- Job creation scheme praised by David Cameron is threatened by cuts http://gu.com/p/33dh4/tw – The Guardian
- VIDEO: Eurozone ‘not behind’ UK unemployment http://bbc.in/w0dqy4 – BBC Politics
- Outlook is bleak outside the labour market – http://on.ft.com/vJQjF1 – Financial Times
- UK youth jobless total passes one million http://on.ft.com/vXNTzZ – Financial Times
- Bagehot: Recessions and the young | http://econ.st/tLErM1 – The Economist
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