Saturday, November 19, 2011

British youth unemployment has leapt through the psychologically important one million mark and now stands at an appalling 22% of the 16-24 age group

But there is a further twist to this alarming trend. The latest figures also show that the number of British-born workers is plummeting by 850 a day while the number of foreign-born employees is rising at the rate of 495 a day. With youth unemployment in Spain standing at 45% and with severe economic problems erupting across Europe, there is likely to be no shortage of willing EU job-seekers coming to Britain in the foreseeable future. A significant proportion of the migrants taking British jobs are not from the EU. According to official figures, the numbers of Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants joining the British workforce over the past year has jumped by 34%. West Africa is another major source of immigrant workers. As the figures to Pakistanis and Bangladeshis joining the workforce indicate, large numbers of non-EU immigrants are still coming to Britain and taking the unskilled jobs that might otherwise have gone to the country's one million young jobless. Around 500 foreigners landed a job in Britain every day over the past year while the number of British-born workers plunged. Official figures paint a shockingly bleak picture of a jobs market in crisis as unemployment hit a 17-year high. The Office for National Statistics said that the number of British-born workers has crashed by 311,000 in a year, equal to more than 850 a day. But in the same period, the number of foreign-born employees jumped by 181,000 – or 495 a day. Overall unemployment is currently 2.62 million, its highest since 1994. The number of employees has dropped by 305,000 between July and September 2011, the largest fall since 1992.

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