Hoxton is worst ward for longterm youth unemployment

Of all the wards in Hackney, Hoxton has the highest number and proportion of 18-24-year-olds who have been claiming Job Seekers Allowance for more than a year.

This week the Hackney Gazette reported Jennette Arnold's concerns about a 186.4% rise in longterm youth unemployment Hackney between May 2011 and May 2012. Arnold, GLA member for Hackney, Islington and Waltham Forest combined this and the scarcity of jobs to criticise Boris Johnson - Her argument in more detail.

The chart above shows that while Hackney longterm youth unemployment is high, Islington has the highest number of unemployed youths.


The actual number of 18-25 year-olds in Hackney who have been out of work for more than a year is 315. That, according to Nomis, is 1.5% of all the borough's 18-25 year olds. I couldn't find a figure for Hackney's 18-25-year-old population but, working backwards from these figures there are about 21,700 which sort of fits in with the borough's population estimates. 


In comparison to other boroughs, Hackney's 1.5% level of youth unemployment is high, but it is not the highest. It is lower than Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets and equal to Newham and Lambeth (chart below). However Jennette Arnold's three boroughs do have the greatest numbers and proportions of longterm youth unemployment. 

Hoxton 


In Hackney the problem exists in all wards but the chart below shows that one stands out as the worst for youth unemployment: Hoxton (ward profile).

Hoxton has had 40 longterm unemployed youths for the last two months.

It also has the second highest level of overall youth unemployment in the borough with 145 of its 18-25-year-olds unemployed and claiming Job Seekers Allowance.

Within Hoxton's population of unemployed youth there is a significantly higher proportion of longterm unemployment. Of the 145 Hoxton 18-25 year-olds who claim Job Seekers Allowance, 40, or nearly 30%, have been doing so for longer than a year.

(The figures here refer long term unemployed youth population (40 in Hoxton) divided by number of 18-25 year JSA claimants (140 in Hoxton) in each ward using May 2012  figures.)

How does that correspond with the rest of the borough? It is hard to put this into context as I couldn't find up-to-date figures for the numbers of 18-25-year-olds in each Hackney ward. 

However, according to Hackney ward profiles (2007) Hoxton had a total population of 10,698 of which 9.4% were 18-24-year-olds. This meant Hoxton's youth population was around 1,005 which was lower than  a sample of others wards I looked at: Wick 1,304 and Victoria 1,230 and Haggerston 1,202. But these were figures from 2007 and a lot could have changed since then. 

Over all though the chart below shows that Hackney youth unemployment - all, not just longterm - while high is not the highest among similar inner city London boroughs. Details of this and general unemployment levels in Hackney were discussed in a previous post.

Some of official figures are here: http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/2038431862/subreports/ccadr_time_series/report.aspx?