This week has seen a rash of media stories saying that youth unemployment is running out of control, in reaction to the official labour market statistics released in August.
But the real story contained in the Office for National Statistics latest figures was rather different.
Though both groups have a hard time in a recession, oldsters who drop off the employment ladder are having a harder time even than the youngsters taking their first steps onto it. It is this story – about the difficulty that older have finding work, that is rarely told.
Just how could they get it all so wrong? Well, read PRIME’s Occasional Paper on the subject.
Too many commentators appear to have rushed in and grabbed the first figure they could find, so anxious were they to “expose” a huge rise in youth unemployment. They all made the elementary error of assuming that those who were economically inactive were all unemployed and completely forgot that nearly one million people aged 18 – 24 are in full-time education.
The real story in these statistics is the same one that PRIME published in 2004 when PRIME wrote “Towards a 50+ enterprise culture” based on the 2003 labour market statistics.
It’s the over 50s stupid.
Why are the media writing wrong headlines and getting the interpretation of the data so wrong? The statistics do tell a fairly clear story that we have a huge worklessness issue among the over 50s. It’s not that hard to discover what is really going on.
When the data is adjusted for full-time education amongst the 16/17 year olds and the 18 – 24 year olds, it is quite apparent that these cohorts are faring betting than others. That is not to say that everything is rosy – one person in ten aged 18 – 24 economically inactive is not good news. But compare it with worklessness in the 50 to State Pension Age cohort. One in four is economically inactive in this age group according to these data.
How about a call for programmes for the 50+ workless? How about a call for more help for 50+ self-employment and enterprise?
Some voices are now calling for such action. The TUC has just warned that long-term unemployed people aged over 50 are at risk of never working again – unless they get proper tailored support to get back into the job market.
The TUC quotes research that shows that people aged over 50 who are unemployed are 10 times more likely to still be out of work after two years than they are to have found a new job.
For a man in this age group, says the TUC, for every additional year spent unemployed the chances of never working again increase by almost 25 per cent. Almost half of unemployed people over 50 had been out of work for more than a year.
It’s not an optimistic story. But it is the truth. We won’t get far doing much about tackling unemployment if the majority of the media get the facts wrong. It takes the pressure off the authorities to get help to the people suffering the worst.
PRIME Occasional Paper August 2009 on Older Workers And Recession
PRIME OccPapAug09 Appendix 1 Labour Market Data Unadjusted
PRIME OccPapAug09 Appendix 2 Labour Market Data Adjusted By Education
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I can vouch for the validity of this article. I have worked continuously since I left full time education, I have a degree and a variety of work based qualifications. I was made redundant in May 2008 and claimed jobseekers allowance for the first time in my life. I was convinced I’d have another job within weeks. However, I have a applied for aprox 400 jobs since then and have had only 4 interviews. Everytime I sign, I ask about retraining. They tell me there is nothing relevant for me as I have not quite hit 50 yet. I am increasingly worried that I will lose my accomodation and it is a constant struggle to make ends meet. I am beginning to suspect i may never work again – I cant say how terrified I am that this might be a reality.
I think the reason why there is so much concern over youth is because they are just beginning their careers and, unfortunately, are seeing nothing but struggle and disappointment ahead.
I agree with Kim as I am in a broadly similar position and have the same suspicions. I finished a contract at the end of May and since then have applied for lots of jobs. I have worked continuously for 35 years. My jobseekers allowance is about to finish as it was contribution based and they tell me that if my husband earns over £100 per week and I have any savings I cannot claim further. My husband is self-employed and his earnings have always been secondary and therefore are only just above this figure. It is a very frightening and uncomfortable position to be in. I do believe that there are many, many people like me who no longer appear on any statistics. This unltimately means no resources will be even considered to help our disadvantaged age group as we simply don’t exist as far as statistics go. Please let me know if you think I am wrong?
I left work in 2003 through ill-health after 34 years continuous work. I was 49 at the time. My plan was to get over my health problems and then look for a new job something different. I did not seek any kind of help from the state. When I couldn’t find a job I decided to retrain and took a two year HND course Photography & Digital Imaging. During the course I was never approached by the Careers Office at the college and Scottish Enterprise gave the class a talk on starting up your own business. Help seemed to be available but only if you were 35 or under!
I left college in 2007 and immediately started to look for work which never materialised. I reluctantly decided to approach the DHSS to see if they could help me find work as I suspected there was ageism at work when applying for jobs. I wish I had never bothered. The lady I saw said she really wanted to help but said I had been doing all I could to find work and that I couldn’t claim any benefits as I hadn’t worked for the past 2 years (I didn’t want any benefits; my husband had a certain amount of savings (this was his pension as he was classed as self-employed) and my National Insurance was up-to-date. I was told to keep at it and something would come. Well it hasn’t.
At least I thought I just had a few years to wait until I could get my pension which I had worked hard for but now that has been taken away. I have written to David Cameron but I expect I shall hear nothing. My husband, who is twelve years older than me has now retired through ill-health and having worked until he was 67 but I really need to find work – even part-time work but what is the point of writing for jobs when you know you are never going to get a reply or an email telling you the vacancy is now filled – if your lucky!