A report examining employment rates for different groups, including young people, disabled workers, and black and Asian employees, has found that untrained young people are most likely to be jobless.
The report Equitable Full Employment: A jobs recovery for all, by the TUC, revealed that despite the recovering labour market, job prospects for low or unskilled young people are declining.
This is in contrast to other disadvantaged groups such as lone parents and older poorly qualified workers, whose chances of being employed have improved over the past 17 years. But even with these advances, these disadvantaged groups remain far less likely to find work than the rest of the working population.
However, the employment picture is more worrying for untrained young people, the TUC said, because this group has seen no improvement in employment prospects. The report findings show their ability to find work has deteriorated rapidly over the same period.
In 1998, three-quarters of young people who were not in education were in work, which was higher than the employment rate for all workers at the time (71 per cent). However, the level of employment for low skilled young people fell behind that of other workers in mid-2005 and has continued to fall ever since.
The job chances of young people not in full-time education converged with workers aged 50-64 last summer – a remarkable turnaround given that they were 25 per cent more likely to be in work than older workers in 1998.
The TUC said that unless action is taken, the prospects for low-skilled youngsters and unqualified people of all ages will continue to worsen, making it “impossible”. Read more
