FactCheck: youth unemployment
Updated on 16 December 2009
Nearly a million young people can't find work, according to official figures out today. But how many of these are full-time students?
The claim
"These are yet more grim figures for Britain. Labour has written off a generation of young people with one in five now unable to find a job."
Theresa May, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, 16 December 2009.
The background
Some pre-Christmas cheer in today's unemployment figures, with a reduction in the number of people on the dole. And although unemployment rose to just under two-and-a-half million, it was the smallest quarterly rise for 18 months.
But youth unemployment is still at a record level, with nearly a million of the jobless aged between 16 and 24.
Young people unable to find work is a cause for concern for politicians across the spectrum - it's feared that, if people are turned off work early on, it gets harder for them to pick up the habit later.
But is that figure quite as bad as it sounds?
The analysis
There are 952,000 unemployed people aged between 16 and 24.
The figure we're talking about comes from the Labour Force Survey, a sample of private households, student halls of residence and NHS accommodation.
It uses an internationally agreed definition of "unemployment", which counts people who say they are not working, but available for and actively seeking work.
It's not the same as the number of people claiming unemployment benefit - that gives a smaller number.
So unemployment figures count anyone who would like a job, even if they have a full-time "occupation" as a student.
Handily, the Office for National Statistics also publishes the figures broken down by educational status.
These show the number of unemployed 16-24-year-olds not in full-time education is considerably lower: 676,000.
This is a drop of 9,000 on the previous quarter, rather than the 16-year high of the overall youth unemployment total.
The verdict
We've seen before that unemployment claims can be "distorted" by the inclusion of students.
The youth unemployment figures are an official measurement rather than a figment of Tory spin.
But the figure of nearly a million unemployed young people is slightly less scary when full-time students are taken out - 676,000 rather than 952,000.
Given the increasing financial pressures on students, the fact that 276,000 are looking for a part-time job isn't just to be dismissed.
But including them in the unemployment figures means the headline figure isn't just the measure of "full-time jobless" that you might expect.
FactCheck rating: 2
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The sources
Labour market statistics: December 2009
Labour market statistics: time series data
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