The UK Reports High Rates of Unemployment
The numbers of people who are unemployed in the UK are the highest they have been in fourteen years according to the latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics.
The recession and the turbulent economic times that have affected all facets of the economy have put many people out of work and it is harder than ever to find a job. The jobless rate rose by 0.2% in June to stand at 7.8% – up for 7.6% in May. These numbers reflect the impact that the recession is having on the workers in the United Kingdom showing that there is a dramatic increase from one year ago when the jobless rate was only 5.4%.
The date released by the Office of National Statistics shows that those aged 16 and 17 years of age are having difficulty finding jobs. In 2008 about 34% of the people in this age group were working and in 2009 the percentage has dropped to 29%.
There has also been a drop in the number of people aged 18 to 24 who are working – a drop from 64% last year to 60% this year. The office states that there are almost a million young people who do not have a job and about half that number is collecting welfare payments.
The predictions for the future are grim. The rate of unemployment among young people is expected to rise sharply in the next five years to double or even triple today’s rates. This is because there are thousands of students set to graduate from college and university and do not have any job prospects.
A former MPC member, David Blanchflower said in May, “We’re talking about nearly nine hundred thousand under 25 year olds now [unemployed] and when the class of 2009 graduates, there will be more than a million. This is everywhere around the country. This is not just unskilled people. It’s people who are leaving the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and London and Exeter. It’s a whole generation of people spread across the spectrum who we can’t write off.”
In the second quarter of 2009, there were 220,000 more people unemployed than for the same period last year and this number is expected to rise to three-quarters of a million by the end of the year. This will bring the total number of unemployed people in the UK to 2.43 million – the highest it has been since 1995. Even though the numbers are high, economists were expecting them to have been much higher.
In the United Kingdom, there were 24,500 more people claiming for jobless benefits in July than there were in June. This number was just a little higher than the 23,800 who submitted claims in the month of June. However, these numbers are down from what they were in February, when the number of claimants reached a whopping increase of 138,000. At present there are about 1.58 people collecting jobless benefits, which is the highest this rate has been in about twelve years.
While many people think that an end to the recession will bring back jobs immediately, economists are sending out warnings that this is unlikely to happen. In fact they are saying that the rates of unemployment are likely to continue to increase for a while after it is over.
The chief economist of IHS Global Insight, Howard Archer warns, “The outlook for the labour market still looks pretty horrible. Unemployment is a lagging indicator and the sharp economic contraction suffered between the second quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2009 will continue to weigh down on the labour market for an extended period. Furthermore, even if the economy does return to growth in the third quarter, activity is still unlikely to be strong enough for some considerable time to come to prevent further net job losses.”
Lord Mandelson, who is standing in as Prime Minister for Gordon Brown, was appalled at the numbers, but asked, “What would be the level of unemployment if we hadn’t done what we have done? “
He went on to say, “We have invested £5bn to keep people in jobs. We don’t want to have a generation lost to unemployment like in previous recessions.”
Tags: turbulent economic times, 17 years, GBP, jobless, sharp economic contraction, david blanchflower, unemployment