Youth unemployment in UK ‘public health time bomb’: WHO Youth unemployment in Britain is a public health time bomb waiting to explode, according to an international review. The study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that more than one million 16 to 24-year-olds still classified as Neets - not in employment, education or training. The organization warned that the unemployed youth in the UK are likely to have worse health compared to their employed counterparts and hence urged the British government to tackle the inequality that has become rampant in the society. “Unemployment may be falling in the UK, but persistent high levels of the number of young people over 18 not in employment, education or training is storing up a public health time bomb waiting to explode,” Michael Marmont, who chaired the study, said. According to the WHO’s review, children and women are also failed by the government’s health policies and that they would be better off living in many other European countries, including Eastern European states, than in Britain. The UK is failing too many of our children, women and young people on a grand scale,” Marmont added. The study found that child mortality rate in the UK is higher than in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Greece. This is while the life expectancy for women is lower than in Spain, Italy and Cyprus. An earlier analysis by the British opposition Labour Party indicated that long-term unemployment among British youths has almost tripled since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government came to power in 2010. MOS/HE Source: PressTv
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 21:43:21 +0000