LSE centre for economic performance: jobs and youth unemployment: it’s bad, but not as bad as you might think

Abstract

A new series of Election Analyses is now available from the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance (CEP). The series will discuss the research evidence on some of the key policy battlegrounds of the 2010 General Election, including macroeconomic policy, immigration, health, education, crime, poverty and inequality, labour market policy, regional policy, energy and the environment, financial regulation and bankers’ bonuses, and foreign aid. The UK’s rate of unemployment has just hit 8% and the number of people unemployed has risen to 2.5 million. According to researchers John van Reenen and Barbara Petrongolo at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), while these figures are bad, they are not as bad as might be expected given the large fall in output in the current recession, the worst decline of any other post-war recession