Young people paying the price

Sheffield’s young people are paying the price for this government’s economic failure, as long term youth unemployment in our area continues to soar.

Today’s national unemployment figures are masking an increasing crisis in Sheffield and our region.

There is no let up for young people in Sheffield who are increasingly shut out of the job market because of this Government’s economic failure.

Long term youth unemployment in Sheffield has increased by 149% - from 490 to 1220 - in the last year. Each of those is a tragedy, and the government’s lamentable failure to act leaves them with little hope.

And, there were just 3,652 vacancies for the 18,023 people looking for a job in the city.

 
There is now a real danger that Britain is becoming a very divided country. Yet the government is busily taking money – in local government, public health, transport, education and more - from the areas with the biggest challenges and giving it to those areas in the south-east with the least.

Long-term unemployment has risen yet again. The number of young people out of work and claiming benefits for more than a year went up yet again, and three-quarters of Britain has higher unemployment than at the election.

More than a third of people out of work have been jobless for more than a year in the clearest sign yet that the Work programme is not doing the job.

The national increase in people in jobs has come from an increase in those in part-time jobs or on temporary contracts.