Unemployment among young in rural areas rising faster than other areas

The number of young people out of work in rural areas and leafy parts of the Home Counties is rising more quickly than anywhere else, according to official figures.

They are the safe Tory seats that are supposed to be far removed from the high youth unemployment that plagues Britain's inner cities.

However, the number of young people out of work in rural areas and leafy parts of the Home Counties is now rising more quickly than anywhere else, according to official figures.

The Conservative strongholds of Winchester, Weston-Super-Mare and Devizes have all seen unemployment amongst 16 to 24 year-olds rise by at least 40 per cent over the past year.

By contrast, youth unemployment has risen by 10 per cent or less in parts of Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester over the same period.

Economists said the figures "shatter the myth" that only poor areas are struggling during the downturn, with many out of work graduates forced to return to live with their parents out in the country as they look for work.

Even the Prime Minister's Oxfordshire seat has been hit hard by the downturn in the jobs market. The number of young people out of work in David Cameron's constituency of Witney has risen by 30 per cent in 12 months.

Other affluent areas with soaring levels of youth joblessness include St Albans, Gloucester, the Cotswolds, Hereford, and the Kent towns of Sevenoaks, Dover, Canterbury and Ashford.

Iain Duncan-Smith, the cabinet minister in charge of the government's fight against unemployment, has seen joblessness amongst your people in his constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green soar by 32.1 per cent over the past year.

John Philpott, chief economic advisor to the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, said these figures "shattered the myth" that youth unemployment was only a problem in towns and cities.

"A lot of these more affluent places are in areas with high numbers of graduates, who are struggling to find work," Mr Philpott said.

"These people are frequently finding it hard to get into work and have to go back home and rely on the bank of mum and dad.

"Once living back there they may find themselves far away from graduate job opportunities."

However, Lantra, a government agency that tries to boost skills in agriculture and other rural industries, maintained that there are jobs in rural areas.

Young people are often reluctant to take such work as it is considered "untrendy", a spokesman for the agency said.

Nearly 50% of the 500,000 people employed in agriculture are aged over 45, suggesting that a large number of vacancies will emerge over the coming years as current workers retire.

"Jobs in the countryside are unfairly often not seen as glamorous by young people," said a spokesman for Lantra. "The muddy Wellingtons reputation persists.

"There are high-skilled jobs in agriculture. If you are driving or servicing a combine harvester you are in charge of a £1million piece of machinery."

"There is a real shortage of people to work in tree and timber work, fencing, hedge trimming and dry-stone walling.

"There are jobs - often graduate jobs - here for the taking."

Youth unemployment last month passed the 1 million mark for the first time since records began in 1992.

The issue has become a running sore for the government, raising questions about the effects of the government's economic strategy.

Official figures last week showed that total UK unemployment rose by 128,000 to 2.64million in the three months to the end of October, the highest figure since 1994.

Economists believe the number of people out of work will continue to rise throughout next year, due to the government's ongoing austerity cuts, the weakness of Britain's major export markets and low business confidence.

Source: Robert Watts, Telegraph.co.uk, Sunday 18th December 2011