Employment: Job Creation

Debate between Baroness Jenkin of Kennington and Lord Freud

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many net additional jobs have been created in the United Kingdom since 2010, and what assessment they have made, if any, of how that figure compares to those of the 19 nations of the Eurozone.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

Since 2010, employment in the UK has risen by more than 2.3 million people. Comparable international figures for this period are not available, but over the last year the UK has seen the second largest rise in employment in the whole of the EU, after Spain.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Youth worklessness is still too high in this country. Will my noble friend tell us what the Government are doing to tackle it?

[Lord Freud]

We have had youth obligation programmes and we seem to have turned the corner here. The figure that I have consistently given to this House over the past nearly six years has concentrated on the workless number—those unemployed or inactive in the 16 to 24 age group. In recent months that figure has been at an all-time low. It is 14.3% of the population and has come down to just a shade over 1 million. It is very interesting that even through the boom years the figure was going up. There was a structural issue. We seem now to be getting at the roots of that structural problem and are beginning to see the figure come down, as I said, to an all-time low in recent months.