Anglesey and the unemployed – Part II

Before we can think about how you can help the unemployed, you need to know who the unemployed are. According to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics the age groups of the unemployed in Anglesey is as follows:

As can be seen a high percentage of the unemployed are in the age group 25-49. Now there are many reasons for this, lack of jobs being the largest factor, in August 2009 the number of unfilled jobs in Anglesey registered at the job centre was 128. It's not supprising therefore, that those who can cross the bridge in search of work.

We should also be honest and admit that whilst the majority of the unemployed are looking for work and want work, there will be a minority that are put bluntly unemployable. However, this will be down to more than just an idle attitude, but other factors, environment, lack of opportunity, and lack of proper guidance when young.

Its far to easy to pick on this small group, especially by those on the right – the rhetoric is all to recognisable – “idle layabouts, doing nothing all day, what they need is a hard days work picking litter, that’ll get them fit for work”. How exactly does forcing someone who does not want to work into ‘hard labour’ going to persuade them that work is a better option, especially when there is well above 10 unemployed people for every job advertised?