Cllr Mick Lerry said: “While this fall in overall unemployment is welcome, today’s figures show nearly 900,000 young people are unemployed and long-term youth unemployment has soared under David Cameron. The government should introduce Labour’s Compulsory Jobs Guarantee to get young people into work”.
Although there are more people in employment now than at the pre-crash peak, the benefits have not been shared equally between age groups. The problem of youth unemployment has been well documented, and 16-24 year olds are still well below the peak, although the number of young people in employment has been rising slowly for almost a year now.
In the Bridgwater and West Somerset Constituency overall the figure for 18 to 24 year olds claiming Job Seekers Allowance has changed from 2036 in March 2013 to 1615 in March 2014. Within these figures some 135 claimants have been unemployed for over two years and this figure has not changed since March 2013.
“Huge amount of lost ground to catch up”
Less well documented is the other age group to have suffered: the 35-49 year old group, for whom employment has been falling steadily since 2008.
Rachel Reeves MP said “At long last earnings are finally rising faster than CPI inflation when bonuses are included, but after four years when prices have risen faster than wages there is a huge amount of lost ground to catch up. Working people are now over £1600 a year worse off than when David Cameron came to office, most people are not feeling any recovery and the link between the wealth of the nation and family finances remains broken.
‘It’s deeply complacent and out of touch for the Tories to try and claim this deep-seated cost-of-living crisis has suddenly been solved. Only Labour has a clear plan to earn our way to higher living standards for all, not just a few at the top”, says Cllr Mick Lerry
17th April 2014
Cllr Mick Lerry – Leader of the Labour Group on Sedgemoor District Council.
Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Bridgwater and West Somerset
Email: michael.lerry@btinternet.com
Mobile: 07775905080
If Labour is so concerned about the young unemployed does it not make sense to retire people at say 65 so at least they can have a chance to enjoy retirement, and therefor create a position filled by an unemployed person he will be happy to be in a job at last ,and the retired person will not be required to work untill he drops.