{"id":46326,"date":"2014-08-13T08:39:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=37df98935052870952406acd0587f4d5"},"modified":"2014-08-13T08:39:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T08:39:00","slug":"press-release-record-fall-in-youth-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=46326","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Record fall in youth unemployment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Youth unemployment has seen the largest annual fall since records began 30 years ago \u2013 alongside the steepest annual fall in unemployment in a quarter of a century, figures published today by the Office for National Statistics show.<\/p>\n

As part of the government\u2019s long-term economic plan, the unemployment rate has also fallen again, down to 6.4%, the lowest since late 2008.<\/p>\n

Youth unemployment has fallen by 206,000 over the past year, which is the largest drop since records began in 1984, bringing it to the lowest level for nearly 6 years. The youth unemployment rate is down 4.5 percentage points compared to a year ago.<\/p>\n

Unemployment fell by 437,000 over the past year \u2013 and 132,000 in only the past 3 months \u2013 which is the biggest annual fall in 25 years. <\/p>\n

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\"Unemployment<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Schemes such as the government\u2019s Work Programme have also contributed to the biggest fall in long-term unemployment since 1998 \u2013 down by 171,000 on the year. <\/p>\n

The number of people in work also continues to rise \u2013 with 820,000 more people in a job compared with 12 months ago \u2013 meaning on average over 15,000 more people are in work each week. The vast majority of the increase in employment was full-time. <\/p>\n

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith said:<\/p>\n

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In the past, many people in our society were written off and trapped in unemployment and welfare dependency. But through our welfare reforms, we are helping people to break that cycle and get back into work.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s long-term economic plan to build a stronger economy and a fairer society is working \u2013 with employment going up, record drops in youth unemployment and hundreds of thousands of people replacing their signing-on book with a wage packet.<\/p>\n

This is transformative, not only for these individuals and their families, but for society as a whole. That is why we have set full employment as one of our key targets \u2013 bringing security and hope to families who have lost their jobs and others who never had jobs, we put people at the heart of the plan. The best way to help even more people into work is to go on delivering a plan that\u2019s creating growth and jobs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The figures published today also include employment by nationality. They show that over the last year almost three quarters of the rise in the number of people in work were UK nationals. <\/p>\n

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\"Annual<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Employment now stands at 30.6 million \u2013 over 2 million more people are in private sector employment since the start of 2010. The employment rate is now 73%, up 1.5 percentage points on the year and is higher than the United States and the EU average, and is in the top 5 countries in the EU.<\/p>\n

The number of people claiming Jobseeker\u2019s Allowance fell again, a reduction of 420,600 over the past year \u2013 the fastest annual fall since 1973. Long-term JSA<\/abbr> claimants fell by 119,200 compared to last year, the largest annual fall since 1998. <\/p>\n

There are 487,300 fewer people claiming JSA<\/abbr> than in 2010. The number of young people on Jobseeker\u2019s Allowance has been falling now for 32 months, down 132,600 on the year.<\/p>\n

Job vacancies rose again, up 119,000 over the past year bringing the number of vacancies in the UK economy to 656,000.<\/p>\n

Background to labour market statistics: August 2014<\/h2>\n

This month\u2019s Labour Force Survey covers April 2014 to June 2014. The claimant count is for July 2014 and the vacancy count for May 2014 to July 2014. <\/p>\n

The number of people in work rose this quarter<\/h3>\n