Youth Unemployment
Sitting in the dole office, waiting to have a fortnightly meeting is enough to make anyone feel the blues. As a patronising clerk looks up from his/her desk, to ask if you have found a job yet despite having applied to hundreds unsuccessfully, is just another way of denting your confidence and psyche. Unsurprisingly, studies have proven that since the recession, a correlation between an increase of mental health problems and unemployment has emerged.
The Samaritans have described emotional health issues as the “hidden face” of the recession and at the end of 2008 warned that “the deepening financial and economic crises could lead to an increase in suicide rates nationwide as people face unemployment, mounting debt and housing insecurity.” And since then, a cycle of unemployment and the stigma from mental health issues has made it even more difficult for sufferers to get back into employment.
Research from the mental health organisation, Rethink shows that less than 40% of employers would consider employing someone with a mental health problem. Not surprisingly, people with mental health problems have the highest levels of unemployment among any disabled group – yet also have the highest ‘want to work’ rate. And out of the currently 2.57 million people unemployed over June to August 2011, 1 million young people were out of work as a result; the highest rate of unemployment in 17 years.
The Princes Trust reported on the affect of youth unemployment claiming that it is a “mental health hazard.” The Trust Macquarie Youth Index reveals how almost half of young people not in work (48 per cent) asserted that unemployment has caused problems including self harm, panic attacks and insomnia.
Around one in six young people (16 per cent) have found unemployment as stressful as a family breakdown, while more than one in ten (12 per cent) claim their joblessness has given them nightmares. Half of young people seeking work said visits to a job centre made them feel ashamed, and more than half said that job-searching had left them feeling disillusioned or desperate.
The youth unemployment epidemic has already seen an overt rise is poverty and crime exemplified by the recent London riots. Top economist David Blanchflower, of the Bank of England’s influential Monetary Policy Committee has stated that the increase has been directly influenced by David Cameron’s coalition to axe the £1billion Future Jobs Fund scheme, costing Britain £10million a day in lost productivity.
Mr Blanchflower said: “This is affecting the children and grandchildren of people everywhere – and it will get worse.”
“The evidence is if you don’t deal with youth unemployment it scars them – and us – forever. What if crime starts to rise and you see kids out on the street? Crime, homelessness, and muggings – all these are associated with it. Who caused this? Maybe it was politicians, bankers or middle-aged people who took out loans. But who is being hurt by this? The young. What did they have to do with it? Nothing. They are the most innocent of all.”
So predictably, an international study on welfare has found that young people in the UK are twice as likely as their counterparts in other rich countries to be so seriously ill or incapacitated that they cannot work and must live off disability benefits. Among 20- to 34- year-olds, rates for disability payments are around 2% in most countries, but 4% in the UK.
It is likely that the figures have decreased since then, as the coalition conveniently made it so that from end of January this year, people could no longer make new claims for Incapacity Benefits and instead claimants could only obtain Employment and Support Allowance. And if being unemployed isn’t enough, attempting to claim Incapacity benefits in the first place has already proved to be “extremely degrading and humiliating“.
It’s no doubt that with unemployment come the stresses of poverty, homelessness and mental vulnerability. And even though we have plenty of dystopian fictions to prepare us to avoid “Who controls the past,’ […] ‘controls the future,” Britain’s youths are set up to have bleak prospects.
Anti-Box Democracy 
Mental health is surely one of the prime indicators of ‘standard of living’ in any society. As living standards fall, so inevitably mental problems increase. The whole of the Western world is now plagued by a rising epidemic. Just type the three words “mental health crisis” into Google and count the hits. Reports from Australia, Canada, Europe and America provide stark evidence of the pandemic, which is affecting children, students, workers and the old. And instead of recognising that mental health problems are an obvious symptom of the underlying malaise of social inequality and injustice, the main solution being offered is pills. Pills to numb the pain and also to make enormous profits for big-pharma. We have increasingly become a society of people “coping” instead of living. Ever more asleep and ever more zombified.
Absolutely, and with it comes an increase of poverty and crime, and then the Government wonders what caused it in the first place. The London riots have been blamed on education and inadequate care from families. But in actual fact, it is symptomatic of the apathy that it is felt by the Government, which then trickles down through society. It’s alarming the amount of teenagers being prescribed pills in order to continue to brainwash the young, and force them to accept their future.
The facts speak for themselves really. For instance, a new report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that in just ten years antidepressant use in the US has increased by a staggering 400%.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20123062-10391704.html
It shows that more than one in ten of the American population aged 12 or over is taking antidepressants. But that’s okay, according to “the authors of the report” because: “… many people who could benefit from antidepressants aren’t taking them. Only a third of people with symptoms of severe depression take antidepressants.”
Although apparently, a further 8% of Americans without depressive symptoms also take the drugs for other reasons such as anxiety. And what about the population below 12 years old?
Well here’s a report on what’s happening closer to home, published by the Guardian in March:
“Children as young a four are being given Ritalin-style medication for behavioural problems in breach of NHS guidelines.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/18/behaviour-drugs-four-year-olds
According to official UK guidelines, it’s only children over the age of six who should be given such mind-altering substances on a daily basis.
Yes, and unfortunately most anti-depressants have not been adequately tested in children, and it really shouldn’t even be considered, as a child’s development could be detoured by a misapplication of drugs. According to Harvard research, “Most psychiatric drugs have not been adequately tested in children, and some drug combinations occasionally prescribed for children — particularly stimulants and antidepressants — have not been fully tested even in adults.”
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Should_children_take_antidepressants.htm
It’s a worry thought that children are being used as guinea pigs for somes of these treatments.
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