Lost generations

Just before Christmas, unemployment in the UK according to the Office for National Statistics hit 2.62 million. This is the highest recorded total since 1994. The unemployment rate in the UK now stands at 8.3%.

Within these statistics, the number of people aged 16-24 years old who are unemployed is now 1.02 million. This means that the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds is 21.9%. That means that over one in five of our young people are NEETs. Not in employment, education or training.

Social commentators talk of a lost generation at times of recession and high unemployment. I heard on the Today programme this morning that unemployment won't peak until sometime in 2013.

It is well known and statistically borne out that if you suffer unemployment when young it drastically increases your your chances of being unemployed later in life.

Two professors in the west country have examined this in detail. Lindsey Macmillan - Centre for Market and Public Organisation in Bristol and Paul Gregg who is professor of economic and social policy at the University of Bath.

If you spend six months unemployed before the age of 23, it is statistically probable that you will spend 20% of your time unemployed five years later and 15% of your time unemployed twelve years later. These figures come from a study of two UK birth cohorts, which track babies born in a particular period for the rest of their lives.

I left school in 1982 - when the recession under the Thatcher government was in full swing and unemployment topped three million.

My first "job", which I didn't especially want and wasn't especially suited to was a YOP scheme as a builder. YOP is an acronym for Youth Opportunity Programme, basically a government job creation scheme and it certainly wasn't an opportunity. Sometime later I did another job as part of a government scheme in a college library which I loved.

It wasn't until I was 21 that I was able to land a proper job and that was a full four years after I finished school. I was only able to secure a job due to the fact I had done a full 12 months as a CSV. As a Community Service Volunteer I was paid £13.75 a week. (I lived in) This was 1985. There followed well over a decade of full employment.

I'm 47 years old, I should have been working for 30 years. When I look back over my life I've been working for 20 plus of those years so I'm living proof that if you experience unemployment when you are young it does blight your life.