Long-term youth unemployment will almost treble, between now and the end of 2011 - that's just one of the key findings in our latest report published today. See today's BBC and Guardian coverage.
In May, 130k under-25s had been unemployed for +12 months. As total unemployment heads towards 3 million, the number of long-term unemployed youth is likely to rise to 350k by Dec 2011.
The £1 billion Future Jobs Fund - announced in the Budget in April - aims to create 150k jobs over the next two years, for 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for a year. Those jobs will start coming through this autumn.
The Government is right to introduce the Future Jobs Fund asap - but it will not be big enough to help every long-term unemployed young person. That's why we're calling the Fund a "sticking plaster" - it will need to be targeted on the cities that have seen the biggest recent rises in unemployment due to the recession.
Our report identifies those cities that have been hit hardest by rising youth unemployment, since Feb 08. "Work-ready" young people in these cities should be front of the queue for the Future Jobs Fund:
- Swindon has seen the biggest increase in youth unemployment - its youth claimant count has gone up by 5 percentage points, from a relatively low rate of just over 2% last year
- Doncaster, Wigan and Milton Keynes have all seen sharp increases - so have Gloucester, Telford, Northampton and Warrington
- Hull, Sunderland and Barnsley still have the highest rate of youth unemployment - almost 1 in 10 of their young people are now claiming Jobseeker's Allowance - but Swindon and others are catching up
Interesting pattern here. Youth unemployment has been rising most sharply in smaller cities, North and South. The increases in the Core Cities, although serious, have been less pronounced.
I wish someone was devoting time to giving young unemployed people examples of how to get out and start earning money instad of focussing on getting the dole to them.
Posted by: Hard Taskmaster | June 24, 2009 at 07:09 PM