Theresa May, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has responded to the latest unemployment figures which reveal that youth unemployment is at a record high.
May said "these are yet more grim figures for Britain - Labour has written off a generation of young people with one in five now unable to find a job."
The youth unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds has reached 19.8 per cent, the highest rate since records began in 1992.
May said the figures revealed more alarming trends of worklessness in the economy. "More and more people are giving up looking for a job, economic inactivity has hit record rates, and the number of Incapacity Benefit claims are rising".
She called on Labour to offer more support to young people as a matter of urgency, in particular by "taking up our proposals to create hundreds of thousands additional apprenticeships and training places to prevent a generation being cast adrift because of Gordon Brown’s recession".