60 chase every retail job vacancy (From York Press)

60 chase every retail job vacancy

8:01am Wednesday 17th October 2012 in News By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

MORE than 60 unemployed people are chasing every retail job, a York-based charity has found.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) study also found that two-thirds of those applying for jobs did not receive any responses.

The study showed there were between 24 and 66 unemployed people for every retail vacancy, depending on the supply of jobs in different areas.

Vacancies were closed to candidates within days, and in some cases, hours, said the report.

The study, by researchers at York and Warwick Universities and the London School of Economics, found that only one in four of the vacancies studied offered full-time, day-time work.

Employers expressed a preference for local candidates with easy journeys to work even though jobseekers are required to look for jobs up to 90 minutes away from their home.

Chris Goulden, head of poverty at JRF, said: “It is important we have measures that provide more full-time, decent-paying jobs that can ensure work pays.

A lack of success in the jobs market saps confidence, demotivates and leaves a scar across a generation of young people, while part-time, low-pay work traps people in poverty.

“On the day the latest unemployment statistics are released, this report makes for grim reading for young people. The intense competition shows the main problem is more fundamental – a major shortage of jobs.”

Professor Becky Tunstall of York University, the report’s co-author, said: “Many jobseekers are prepared to take any job, but it’s hard to make work pay when many jobs offer short hours and low pay. Applicants face huge barriers when they take account of costs such as travel expenses and childcare.”

Meanwhile, a separate report by the TUC found that young black men have experienced the sharpest rise in unemployment since the coalition came to power, with more than one in four of all black 16 to 24-year-olds currently out of work.

The TUC report said that young black men are more likely to be unemployed than any other ethnic group, although young Asian women have been hit by the biggest rise in unemployment over the past decade, up from six per cent to 13 per cent.

The Prince’s Trust has also found the number of young people out of work for longer than two years has more than doubled since 2008, with Yorkshire among the hardest-hit regions, according to new research.

A study by The Prince’s Trust showed a 168 per cent increase, with an even bigger jump in 18 to 24-year-olds out of work for at least six months.