YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN DERBY SEES FOURFOLD INCREASE IN LAST 12 MONTHS

ALMOST four times as many young people in Derby are stuck in a rut of long-term unemployment compared to a year ago.

The latest statistics, compiled by the House of Commons Library, reveal the depths of the unemployment slump, and show Derby being hit considerably harder than most of the UK.

These findings are a direct consequence of the Government’s policy of recklessly raising taxes and cutting spending too far and too fast.

The number of young people aged between 18 and 24 claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance for 12 months or more increased by 290 per cent between March 2011 and March 2012.

That compares to a UK average increase of 213 per cent and an East Midlands average of 212 per cent.

Derby has a history of producing a bright and aspirational workforce. But just when these young people should be developing those aspirations they are finding opportunities diminishing with every cut.

Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee would use a tax on bankers’ bonuses to get 110,000 young people across the country into work, providing them with real jobs they would be required to take.

Instead, the Government has decided to leave those young people to rot while many of those very same super-rich bankers pay less tax than before. It’s a policy that defies belief.”

The number of people signing on is going up, we still have more than a million young people out of work, more women unemployed than since 1987 and a benefits bill that is spiralling by the day.

This Government has utterly failed to tackle Britain’s jobs emergency and is limping along in crisis. The Government’s whole policy prospectus is nothing short of an omnishambles.