The youth labour market is improving, but long-term youth unemployment remains a concern in some cities.
The labour market figures released today show a continued general improvement in the youth (16-24) labour market, with unemployment falling and employment rising. While this improvement has been echoed at a city level, long-term youth unemployment remains a concern and has actually increased over the course of the year in some cities.
The UK’s youth claimant unemployment fell 1.7 percentage points over the last year, to 3.7 per cent. The UK has also seen the proportion of young claimants who are long-term claimant unemployment (those claiming JSA for one year or more) fall over the course of the year, from 18.3 per cent in April 2013 to 17.1 per cent in April 2014. In line with the UK all of the largest 64 cities have seen a fall in their youth claimant count rates over the past year. But not all have seen a fall in long-term youth claimant unemployment.
Figure 1 shows how long-term youth unemployment varies across the country. Cities with a low proportion of long-term claimants are clustered in the south of England but Scotland is also performing strongly. At 7.2 per cent, Milton Keyneshas the lowest proportion of young claimants that are long-term unemployed.
It is not the case that cities with the lowest youth claimant counts are those with the lowest long-term youth unemployed. Warrington has one of the lowest youth claimant counts of any of the UK’s 64 largest cities but has the highest proportion of young claimants that are long-term unemployed, at 28.3 per cent. Similarly, Norwichhas a low youth claimant rate but relatively high long-term youth unemployment.
Figure 1: Proportion of 16-24 year old JSA claimants claiming for 1 year or more (April 2014)
Figure 2 shows that Warrington is also the city to have seen the largest yearly increase in long-term youth unemployment of 12.7 percentage points. This increase is much larger than that experienced by any other city. Bournemouth has seen the second highest increase in long-term youth unemployment of only 4.0 percentage points. In line with the UK as a whole, the majority of cities have seen a fall in long-term youth unemployment, with Ipswich seeing the largest fall of -7.2 percentage points.
Figure 2: Yearly change in the proportion of 16-24 year old claimants claiming JSA for 1 year or more (April 2013 -2014)
Find the latest city-by-city analysis below:
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