Youth unemployment has risen in 97 per cent of the UK over the last 12 months, according to analysis released by the TUC.
Unemployment among young people is expected to reach the 1 million mark when official figures are released next week by the Office for National Statistics.
But analysis conducted by the TUC has revealed that the number of unemployed youths aged between 18 and 24 has increased in 196 local authorities, out of a total of 202.
The only six UK local authorities where youth unemployment has not risen in the last year are Hillingdon, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames, Reading and – the only authority not in the south east – Warwickshire. Everywhere else has witnessed an increase, by an average of 1.2 percentage points.
The local authority areas with the biggest rises in the number of young people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance between September 2010 and September 2011 include Hartlepool (3.5 percentage point increase), Darlington (3.2), Waltham Forest (3 per cent), Sandwell (2.9), and Doncaster, Torbay and Blackpool (all 2.7 per cent).
Commenting on the figures, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “We’re facing the biggest youth unemployment crisis in a generation with close to one million of our young people unable to find work.”
The TUC says that their analysis proves that the coalition government has taken the wrong approach to youth unemployment and further that their handling of the economy is wrong.
During the recession between September 2007 to September 2011, the number of young people unable to find work at least doubled in a third of local authorities (32 per cent).
“With the economic outlook the gloomiest it’s been since the end of the recession the bleak prospects facing young jobseekers look set to be with us for some considerable time to come, unless the government changes course now and brings in immediate measures to support jobs and growth,” Brendan Barber added.
