Lies, Damn Lies and Youth Unemployment

Generali

A fairly typical quote on youth unemployment:

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

All the people hand-wringing about borrowing passing the problems on to the young, obviously haven't seen the latest youth unemployment figures.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/audio/2011/feb/23/business-podcast-youth-unemployment

One in five adults under 25 are out of work, according to recent unemployment figures. Our expert panel discuss whether Britain is raising a 'lost generation'

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32a8c8c0-23b4-11e0-8bb1-00144feab49a.html

Youth unemployment has risen to a record level, sparking concern about a “lost generation” as the total number of people out of work increased for a second successive month.

Obviously the Tories' fault, right?

Well maybe.

Sept 2009 youth unemployment was 722,000 (link)

May 2010 (9 months later), youth unemployment was 796,000 (link), up 74,000 in 9 months

Feb 2011 (9 months later) youth unemployment was 833,000 (link), up 37,000 in 9 months

IronWolf

Also, its not 1 in 5 young people, noone ever understands what unemployment rates actually are.

The numbers always increase because the population estimates are increasing. The proportion would have to fall quite a bit for the actual numbers to just flatline.

Hereward

The stats also exlcued people in education and training which reduces the number of young people available to work, which in turn makes the youth unemployed figures look worse

Hereward

IronWolf wrote: »

Also, its not 1 in 5 young people, noone ever understands what unemployment rates actually are.

The numbers always increase because the population estimates are increasing. The proportion would have to fall quite a bit for the actual numbers to just flatline.

If the base figure was increasing then the proportion out of work would look better. Thats assuming that the increase in the unemployment doesn't rise in proportion to the increase in the underlying population.

PasturesNew

I blame raising pension ages too.

abaxas

PasturesNew wrote: »

I blame raising pension ages too.

It's hard to get rid of long term staff without costs.

Why should someone have the right to more money simply becasue they have worked their longer?

ukcarper

PasturesNew wrote: »

I blame raising pension ages too.

You could be right but it's only just starting to happen.

bendix

More women in work too. Not saying it's a bad thing - on the contrary - but it obviously has an impact.

blueboy43

IronWolf wrote: »

Also, its not 1 in 5 young people, noone ever understands what unemployment rates actually are.

The numbers always increase because the population estimates are increasing. The proportion would have to fall quite a bit for the actual numbers to just flatline.

I wonder if you actually understand!

The figures are per ONS

938,000 people between 16-24 year olds are not in education or training or employment.

This is 16% of all 16-24 years olds (Not 1 in 5 but 1 in 6).
That means all including those at school and at High Ed.

As a check, this implies that there are 5.86 million people aged 16-24, which common sense would tell you sounds roughly right considering the population of the UK.

Whatever your political persuasion it is a lamentable number of blighted lives.

Pretty clear that one of the worst affected groups affected by the recession is the young.

Don't know what the solution is but you wonder if its sensible to have a miniumum wage in these circumstances (particulalrly where the NEET rates are chronic like the North East) and also wonder if it would be better to try and get people in work & part time study rather than what seemed to be Labours idea of parking people in dubious forms of full time education as adults.

There also seems to be a worrying base level of NEETS - it hasn't been below 640,000 since 2000 (haven't looked before that). Curious also that it is more of a female than male problem but the men have been catching up fast in the last few years (since Q1 2009)

blueboy43

Generali wrote: »

A fairly typical quote on youth unemployment:

Maybe I am being thick - but where are the lies ?

ukcarper

I believe quite a few who are in work are only part time.