Our recent report on youth unemployment seems to have hit a nerve. In case you missed it, we predicted last month that the number of under-25s out of work for a year will almost treble from 130k to 350k by end-2011. That's more than double the 150k that will be helped by the £1bn Future Jobs Fund.
The Today Programme had three stories on this last Thursday - from Swindon, where youth unemployment has increased most sharply; an interview with former MPC member David ("Danny") Blanchflower; and another interview with NUS President Wes Streeting.
Yesterday, a leading article in The Times warned that the Future Jobs Fund could be a "dismal flop" unless business fully engages with the government's plans. The Times mentioned the latest OECD survey of the UK, which found that youth unemployment was already high in 2007 - and recent stats from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which show that almost 17k graduates from last summer are currently unemployed. Many more of this summer's graduates will find themselves unemployed, too.
Blanchflower has the most radical ideas on what should be done about this - see this speech he gave last February. He's now calling youth unemployment a "national crisis". He says that the Future Jobs Fund does not go far enough, because it helps only those young people that have been out of work for a year or more.
More radical action is needed, to help all unemployed young people. He's calling on the Government to encourage employers to take on more young people, by e.g. cutting employers' national insurance contributions.
Yes, this will cost more - but the costs of not doing more to tackle youth unemployment are a lot higher.
Comments