by Atul Hatwal
The headlines this week were rightly dominated by the dismal news that youth unemployment crossed 1 million. But hidden amid the thousands of statistics released by the government, Uncut has uncovered figures that show a new and unexpected group beginning to feel the impact of the downturn.
Unemployment amongst senior executives has rocketed by 13% in the past year, significantly faster than the overall 7% rise in unemployment and even faster than the 12% rise in youth unemployment.
And while the increased unemployment rate for women has been in the news, in the top “managerial and senior official” category in the labour market figures its men who have been hit hardest.
Over the past year, unemployment amongst male senior executives went up by 14.3% while for women the rise was 10.7%.
At the other end of the job scale, levels of unemployment for unskilled workers rose, but by 4.6%, substantially below the headline average. In the semi-skilled “process, plant and machine operative” category meanwhile, unemployment actually fell by 18.1% over the year.
Although the rise in absolute numbers of unemployed senior executives is comparatively small at 18,000 and their new unemployment rate of 3.3% is a world away from the 12.3% unemployment rate amongst unskilled workers, it will still potentially have disproportionately significant results.
