UK’s 800,000 school leavers and graduates need jobs and education offers amid turmoil, says thinktank

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Youth unemployment in Britain will reach the 1 million mark over the coming year unless the government provides job guarantees or incentives for school leavers and graduates to stay on in education, a thinktank warns.

The Resolution Foundation (RF) said that in the absence of action an extra 600,000 people under the age of 25 would swell dole queues, with a risk of long-term damage to their career and pay prospects.

Recessions tend to centre on one part of the economy; coronavirus has hit them all. The road to recovery will be long

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In a way, Britain should have been the country best prepared for the devastating impact of Covid-19 on the economy, because throughout 2019 barely a day went past without someone popping up to warn of the dangers of a cliff-edge Brexit.

But there are cliff edges and then there’s falling off the cliff, and not even the most pessimistic remainer would have been willing to predict what has happened since the UK went into lockdown at the end of March. While most of the attention has been focused – quite rightly – on the medical emergency, the economy has collapsed.