Figures paint grim picture of UK jobs

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194984.html

Britain's employment figures are showing a grim outlook of an economy, which the country's coalition government boasts, is on the road to recover anytime soon.

New figures showed unemployment, which was expected to fall by around 10,000, has actually increased by 38,000 to 2.49 million or 7.9 percent.

In addition to unemployment, there are also five other worrying trends, which add to the grim statistics about rising joblessness.

Figures show the number of vacancies across the UK is down 22,000 over the quarter and down 28,000 over the year to 449,000. It is the lowest number since the three months to November 2009.

Meanwhile, youth unemployment has spiked by 15,000 to 949,000 or 20.2 percent over the last quarter. This figure will keep rising as thousands of A-level students enter the labour market for the first time with no job opportunities to occupy.

Based on the figures, the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds, whom are not in full-time education, has risen to 18.8 percent, up 0.5 percent from the three months to March.

Another trend, which is a cause of great concern, is that the number of people working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job has risen to a record high of 1.26 million, up 7 percent on the quarter and 17 percent on the year. According to the figures, 16 percent of Britain's 7.9 million part-time workers fall into this category.

This is while that the number of temporary workers who could not find a permanent job (as opposed to those who did not want one) has risen to 601,000, up 29,000 or 5.1 percent over the last three months and up 33,000 or 5.8 percent over the last year. As figures show, 37 percent of the UK's 1.6 million temporary workers fall into this category.

And, the fifth trend is that female unemployment has increased by 21,000 over the quarter (male unemployment rose by 18,000) to reach 1.05 million, which is the highest figure since 1988.

Unsurprisingly, women who make up 65 percent of the public sector workforce, have been hit hardest by the coalition's cuts.

Women also bore the brunt of redundancies with 69,000 made redundant over the last three months, up 25,000 or 56.5 percent on the quarter and 20,000 or 41.5 percent on the year.