By David Blanchflower

Long-term youth unemployment is a blight on the British economy. Young people didn’t cause the recession but are being hit hardest. The bankers, on the other hand, did cause it and they have been the biggest gainers in the labour market. They have also significantly increased their presence at the top of the income distribution. Barclays’ chief executive, Antony Jenkins, last month announced that although earnings had fallen and profits fell by a third the bonus pool had not, but had increased by 10 per cent to £2.38bn, even though dividends were frozen. Hardly surprisingly the shareholders aren’t happy and are poised to kick out Sir John Sunderland, the £189,000-a-year non-exec head of the board’s remuneration committee. They seem to have learnt nothing. Back to them in a bit.

Currently around 250,000 youngsters under the age of 25 have been continuously unemployed for at least a year on the broader ILO unemployment count, up by 50,000 since May 2010 when the Coalition was formed. Approximately 56,000 18- to 24-year-olds have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance, up from 26,000 in May 2010. These are the kids that are most likely to be permanently scarred by their unemployment experience at big cost to themselves and everyone else. It is thus to be welcomed that Ed Miliband announced Labour’s jobs guarantee scheme that would be implemented if they won the next election in 2015, and paid for by a bank bonus tax and a squeeze on high-earners’ pensions.

Read the full column in The Independent here.