Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
In March 2021, the Office for National Statistics produced statistics showing that unemployment for young...
Conclusion
In March 2021, the Office for National Statistics produced statistics showing that unemployment for young black people aged 16–24 had increased from 24.5% in the period October-December 2019 to 41.6% over the same period in 2020, while unemployment for young white people increased from 10.1% to 12.4%.27 These statistics were an ‘ad-hoc’ release, and are not published on a regular basis. The Department agreed that the findings were “stark”, but was not able to explain such an uneven unemployment impact on different ethnic groups. The Permanent Secretary said that “there were different groups, different demographic groups, different ethnic groups and different communities in the same group. I know there are lots of different issues going on. I think you can generalise on some issues around aspiration, barriers and unconscious bias. There are all sorts of things going on”.28
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
3b: PAC Recommendation: The Department should work with the Office for National Statistics to provide more regular statistics on the claimant count and unemployment rates broken down by ethnicity and age. We expect an update on this work when the Department next appears before us in September. 3.4 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 3.5 The department is working with the Office for National Statistics to understand how it can best monitor unemployment trends amongst particular groups, however, this is an area where due to small sample sizes there can be large variations in figures, so care needs to be taken in how the department will use these figures.