Region’s school leavers in jobs lottery

It argues that there is now a North-South divide, with youngsters in the North-East and Scotland facing the worst prospects.

At the same time, London and the South-East remain relatively unaffected by youth unemployment, according to a study by education specialists Ambitious Minds.

The study warns that teenagers who are picking up their GCSE results this week have seen the most “dramatic” changes to their prospects and expectations than any other secondary school year group for 70 years.

When they began their education, and when they started secondary school, unemployment rates were low. But the last five years have brought “economic deterioration, systemic failures, false dawns and empty promises,” it says.

The organisation looked at the impact of the recession on job prospects and found hotspots of youth unemployment throughout the UK, based on published figures.

The North-East, Scotland and Yorkshire and the Humber have all had rises in youth unemployment that are twice as large as those in London and the South-East, which have seen only small increases, it claims.

Overall, the North-East of England had seen the biggest rises.

In September 2007, 5.1 per cent of 16-to-24-year-olds in the region were claiming jobseekers’ allowance. By July 2012 this had risen to 8.6 per cent – up 3.5 per cent.

Ambitious Minds chief executive Sean McGuire said: “Those areas which have suffered disproportionately in the last five years need support to prevent unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment, becoming normalised.

“As the economy stagnates, young people and the organisations which support them must understand and grapple with the employment issues that are facing them.”

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