Youth unemployment rises to 991,000
Wednesday, 12 October 2011 09:50
Unemployment rose by 55,000 in September from August, up from 2.51 million to 2.566 million, according to the latest labour market figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today.
This means the employment rate for the UK fell slightly from 70.5 per cent of people aged 16-64 to 70.4 per cent. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 8.1 per cent of the population.
Unemployment rose by 114,000 in the three months to the end of August, and the total of 2.566 is the highest number of unemployed people in the UK for 17 years.
Dr Howard Archer, Chief UK & European Economist at IHS Global Insight said: "There is no getting away from the fact that this is a very disappointing and worrying set of labour market data. While claimant count unemployment rose less than feared in September, this was outweighed by a very sharp drop in employment.
"We think unemployment on the ILO measure is very likely to reach 2.75 million by mid-2012, taking the unemployment rate up to 8.5%. Indeed, there is amounting risk that unemployment could rise even higher than this."
Youth unemployment, for those aged 16-24 increased to just shy of the 1 million mark, reaching 991,000 as young people find it more difficult to get a job in a competitive labour market. This means that 21.3 per cent of those aged 16-24 are out of work.
The level of youth unemployment has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the recession in 2008. The number of people claiming jobseekers allowance increased by 17,500, to reach 1.6 million in September.
Average earnings increased by 2.8 per cent in the three-month period from June to the end of August.
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