In Focus: The lost generation?
Remember that UB40 song, ‘One in Ten’? Well, you can halve that after yesterday’s unemployment numbers were announced.
One in five young people now don’t have a job. That’s a pretty sobering statistic. That’s one in five who have no hope of getting on the housing ladder; one in five who don’t have the means of setting up their own business; and one in five who are being hampered by no sign of a plan from the government as to how they hope to instill confidence into a private sector that will soon feel the ill wind of the public sector cuts.
There are now nearly two and half million people in the UK out of work, and that figure will only surely rise over the coming months as most of the regional development agencies close and councils lay off thousands of staff. In total, 44,000 have been made redundant in just three months – a huge rise.
In darker moments it’s difficult to see a way out. The structural weakness of the economy and the intensified fiscal squeeze will continue to loom over the UK jobs market
For the next generation of workers, the outlook is bleak, with the economy set to take years to emerge from the effects of the financial crisis and deep recession. In the decade prior to 2008 the economy, and thus job creation, was driven in large part by the expansion of the public sector, financial services, construction and retail - all of which now face a sobering period of adjustment.
Of course there is some light – but it’s a long way down the tunnel. New areas of growth in manufacturing, green energy and technology will come to the fore, but with the outlook for private consumption so muted, and labour productivity still subdued, the signs are not good that the private sector is going to employ people in the large numbers the government hoped it would to the public sector culls.
Indeed, the government’s policy on the job cuts does often seem to be made up on the hoof. What’s needed for the confidence to return to the private sector is the the government delivering a clear and determined plan for growth.
Next year’s Budget could be the axis on which whole generations of young peoples’ dreams or nightmares balance. Employment minister Chris Grayling has said he’ll do more to help young people back into work. Action, not words, is what is needed – and fast.
Comments? Sam Metcalf, Insider
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