Women ‘hit hardest’ in labour market

A total of 260,000 women in the UK have been jobless for more than 12 months despite total unemployment falling slightly, analysis by think tank IPPR found.

The report said women’s position in the labour market was becoming increasingly insecure, accounting for more than 40 per cent of redundancies in recent months.

Cuts to public sector jobs were disproportionately hitting women because of the high numbers employed in areas such as local government and the NHS, said IPPR.

Dalia Ben-Galim, IPPR’s associate director, said: “During the recession, unemployment among men increased much more than among women, but our analysis of the latest figures show that this experience is now being reversed, in large part because of the Government’s public spending cuts.

“Behind the headline unemployment figures, more people are experiencing long spells out of work and long-term unemployment is rising steeply.”

IPPR said the UK employment rate lags behind other European countries where women are better represented in the labour market, partly due to better childcare provision.

Norway has the highest female employment rate in the EU (73.3 per cent), along with Denmark (71.1) and Sweden (70.3), while the UK is significantly lower (64.6), said the report.

The study included a regional breakdown of women’s unemployment levels which showed in Yorkshire and the Humber there were 227,000 unemployed, 82,000 of them women.