Tom Mursell

Youth unemployment currently stands just shy of 950,000 and economists reckon it could hit 1 million very soon. The story has been covered by BBC Newsbeat all day with features from young unemployed people from the West Midlands (which has one of the highest youth unemployment rates). BBC interviews various young people who have been turned down from jobs on the basis they don’t have the necessary experience.

This isn’t a new problem; I’ve experienced before (pre-recession) as have plenty of other school leavers & graduates I know. The difference now is that there are far more people (older & more experienced people) chasing those same jobs that required experience in the first place. The result is a whole load of young people on the “scrapheap” (to quote the TUC).

Last month the Government & various employers launched the Backing Young Britain campaign along with the Future Jobs Fund offering up 150,000 for long-term youth unemployed, and it’d be interesting to see when these campaigns will have real impact on these figures.

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