Councillor Kevin Keenan
The number of young adults unemployed in Dundee is now the same as the total number of people unemployed in the city in the mid 1960s
Councillor Kevin Keenan has commented on the latest unemployment figures (August) showing that the number of young adults in the 18-24 age group now unemployed in Dundee is now at the same level as it was for all of those unemployed in the city in the mid-1960s.
Official figures show that the number of people in the young adult age group without a job last month was just over 1,900.
That's the same number provided by further official figures of the total number of people unemployed in Dundee in March 1966.
Kevin Keenan said,
"It’s bad enough that the number of young adults unemployed in Dundee is now the same as the total number of unemployed in Dundee in the mid 1960s.
"What makes the comparison even more depressing is that in the mid 1960s, the population of Dundee was around 182,000. Today it stands at 144,000.
"That’s around 40,000 less Dundonians nowadays than there were back in the 1960s.
"Older Dundonians will have their own memories of the 'Swinging Sixties'.
" I’m sure that one memory will be that these were more secure times for themselves, and that the problem of unemployment was nothing approaching the magnitude that it is today.
" We need to invest in our young people today with the same priority as they did in the ‘60s.
"This is why Labour has, for example, called on the UK Government to raise £2 billion from the same bank bonus tax as was done last year which would help fund putting young adults back to work .
"The best way to find our way out of this economic downturn is to invest in our young people, who are the future of our city."
Unemployment in Dundee rose again last month and now stands at 5,899 ( 6.2 per cent, compared with a Scottish average of 4.3 per cent.)