Recovery and renewal: Tackling long-term unemployment

New projections in this research reveal that the number of long-term unemployed people across England could reach 1.2 million, with significant local variations - a stark reminder of the direct impact on our communities, and the need for targeted solutions.

Recovery and renewal: Tackling long-term unemployment

The COVID pandemic has led to an unprecedented set of national measures to protect businesses and workers. Despite these efforts, unemployment continues to rise, and with four million people on furlough, no community will be untouched by the jobs crisis.

New projections in this research reveal that the number of long-term unemployed people across England could reach 1.2 million, with significant local variations - a stark reminder of the direct impact on our communities, and the need for targeted solutions.

The projections cited in the Recovery and Renewal report show that local factors matter including an areas’ economic conditions going into the crisis and the reliance on sectors vulnerable to lockdown including retail and hospitality. The longer you are out of work, the harder it is to find, compete for, and secure a job. We must do everything we can to avoid the damaging impact long term unemployment can have on people’s prospects, household incomes, health and wellbeing, and on our local communities and economies as we know them.

Dealing with rising unemployment and limiting the knock-on lasting effects on communities is a big issue for leaders of our towns and cities, particularly as our economy loses more jobs than it is creates. How quickly areas recover can be influenced by a combination of policy responses to rising unemployment, businesses’ ability to stay afloat and recruit again, identifying and investing in sectors that have the potential to create quality, new jobs in the short and longer term, retraining  people to find new jobs, including in new sectors, and having decent local careers advice and guidance to help make transitions. Bringing all these policy solutions together around place is critical, so no community is left behind.    

As democratically elected leaders and place shapers, local government is the natural partner of central government and is ideally placed to achieve this, alongside our stakeholder partners. Our sector has shown extraordinary capability to lead our communities through the crisis and now we want to do more to rebuild the future they deserve. There is much to be gained by national and local government combining resources and expertise to deliver for people and businesses hard hit by the crisis.

Our offer to the Government is that with adequate resourcing and powers, and an opportunity to work in partnership at the earliest stage to shape new or re-design existing Plan for Jobs initiatives, we will help land well-intended but often disconnected national schemes so they become greater than the sum of their parts. The challenge ahead is one we cannot afford to get wrong for our people or places.

Councillor James Jamieson, Chairman of the Local Government Association


You can read the full report on the Learning & Work Institute's website.