As official figures revealed that the number of people out of work had risen to 2.5 million, experts warned that youth and female unemployment was only set to worsen over the months ahead.
According to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, unemployment rose by 49,000 in the three months to November, putting the overall unemployment rate at 7.9%, up from 7.7% in the previous quarter.
Employment also fell by 0.3% to 70.4%, the equivalent of 69,000 fewer people in work, which was the largest quarterly fall since the three months to August 2009. Despite this situation, the number claiming Jobseekers Allowance fell by 4,100 to 1.46 million.
But the prospects were particularly bleak for young people. The total number of adults under 25 who are out of work rose by 32,000 to 951,000, pushing the youth unemployment rate up to 20.3%, the highest level since records began in 1992.
Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said: “The UK is in serious danger of creating a lost generation of young people, who are not in work, training or education.”
The REC’s Youth Employment Taskforce had made many “robust recommendations” to the coalition government at the end of last year, which included introducing measures to “stimulate and incentivise” private sector employers to hire young people, and it needed to make such action a top priority to guarantee the long-term success of the UK economy, he added.
But analysts fear that the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance and the closure of the Jobs Fund in March will result in youth unemployment deepening further over the months ahead.
Similar concerns were also raised about female unemployment. Although the number of males out of work increased by 43,000 over the quarter to hit 1.48 million and female unemployment rose by 6,000 to reach 1.02 million, forthcoming public sector job losses are expected to hit women disproportionately.
Moreover, John Philpott, chief economic advisor at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said that women actually accounted for more than three quarters of the fall in employment in the latest set of job figures due to a steep rise in the number who were ‘economically inactive’ rather than ‘unemployed’.
“The number of ‘workless women’ in the UK – those who are economically inactive who say they want a job plus those unemployed and actively seeking work – now stand at 2.36 million. This remain below the equivalent figure for men of almost 2.5 million, but the gap is set to narrow with cuts in public sector employment likely to fall far more heavily on women than men,” he said.
A large quarterly fall of 59,000 in the number of part-time female workers was a “clear sign” that a ‘female jobs recession’ was already underway, Philpott said.
