Unemployment: Young People

Earl Attlee Excerpts
Tuesday 28th October 2014

(9 years, 7 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Freud Portrait Lord Freud
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The Governor of the Bank of England has said that the only way that we are going to get growth in real wages is by recovering productivity in the economy. One way is clearly to reduce dependency and to get 1.7 million extra people into work. The second way is to get the skills base up, and there are now some really good signs that we are moving that up by serious percentage points. The third way is progression in work, so that people earn more. That is what universal credit is all about.

Earl Attlee Portrait Earl Attlee (Con)
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My Lords, is it not the case that we have never had as many people in work as we have now?

Lord Freud Portrait Lord Freud
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We now have 30.7 million people in work. It is not just about the number; we are now at a 73% rate of employment, which is little short of the all-time high.