“Today’s labour market statistics show youth unemployment has dropped significantly. However, this pace of change can only be sustained if our economy is creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs every quarter. Unfortunately, in the three months to October the economy only created 40,000 new jobs, far fewer than we have seen recently. Employment amongst women actually fell by 13,000 over the period.
“However, rather than entering employment or full-time training, it appears that many 16-24 year olds are becoming economically inactive. It is too early to make predictions, but there is a real risk that these numbers will represent the end of the recent mini labour market recovery.”
