Friday 14 October 2011

Youth Unemployment

A busy day today - politics in the morning (talking at HMT about planning reforms) and research all afternoon (SERC's weekly and work in progress seminars).

In between meetings, I was interested to see the Mayor of London's comments concerning the need to do something about youth unemployment in the capital.

First, I am not sure that pleas to landlords to retrofit properties is likely to do much to deal with the immediate problem. Second, and more substantively, it's striking that the young appear to be doing badly across the country. This reinforces my impression that spatial differences in unemployment outcomes are being driven mostly by compositional differences across places. Another case where who you are matters considerably more than where you are living?