Your view: More under-25s are officially unemployed

12 October 2011

By Dave Howard

Newsbeat politics reporter

More 16 to 24-year-olds are without work than at any time in nearly two decades.

Many thought the official number of jobless young people would hit a million today.

The actual figure is slightly lower, at 991,000, or a fifth of under-25s.

You've been telling us how tough you're finding it on the jobs market.

Nineteen-year-old Dean Gilbert, outside a London job centre

"I was doing an apprenticeship in air conditioning engineering.

"My firm went bankrupt and I've been looking for a job ever since.

"My friends are out of work, they're all struggling. Most of us are on Jobseeker's Allowance.

"I'm struggling, do you know what I mean?"

Robert: "Everyone is having difficulty finding work.

"I'm a qualified welder and fabricator working as a security officer because there is no meaningful work available."

Jade: "I had been trying to get a job since leaving uni with a teaching degree.

"It's been hell trying to find a job, especially teaching jobs down in the south west, its a tough competition."

Carl: "There's plenty of jobs flipping burgers or other undesirable jobs and nothing wrong with taking them.

"The problem is they have a degree in X and refuse to take anything else, even for an interim job.

"You have to wonder how many of these youth unemployment figures are self-inflicted."

"I've just found a job, working as a sales assistant. I left school at 16 and I've been out of work ever since.

"It was depressing. You sit at home doing nothing and then you go to the job centre.

"A lot of my friends are looking for work as well. I've been lucky really."

Danielle is bucking a huge trend by getting a sales job.

Official figures show that more than 80,000 people have lost similar jobs in retail in the last year.

The government blames economic problems in Europe and elsewhere but critics say moves to cut back the UK's debt are having too great an impact.