Magazine |
Youth unemployment ‘is a national crisis’, claims professor

Youth unemployment, in Britain, has been branded a national crisis according to a respected economics professor, and member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee.

Professor David Blanchflower has warned that if the government doesn’t act fast ‘we will be faced with a lost generation as the number of youths not in employment or training represents 18% of the youth population’. The figures will get worse before they get better, Professor Blanchflower has warned, calling it a ‘totally unacceptable national tragedy’.

In his report the Professor said that part of the problem could be attributed to the fact that the growth in the number of young people entering the job market is larger than it has been for a decade.

And UK graduates face a fresh blow to their confidence after it was revealed that the UK recorded the highest number of applicants per graduate vacancy.

Figures recorded by the graduate recruiter, AGR, revealed that a staggering 48 applicants apply for just one vacancy compared with 43 in Australia and 40 applicants in South Africa.

Warning that the market has yet to show any signs of recovery Carl Gilleard, chief executive of AGR said: ‘In 2009 one in four graduate vacancies disappeared, yet we had the highest number of graduates coming into the market.

‘Graduates coming out of university will be facing tough times for a couple of years yet. There will be a lot of graduates with high expectations chasing a relatively tight pot of graduate opportunities,’ he warned.

18/01/2010