UK's 'hidden' unemployment among EU worst, says report

Unemployment in the UK is "relatively high" by European Union standards even though fewer people than expected lost their jobs in the past year, according to a report today.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said the country was no better than a "mid-table" performer in the EU unemployment league, as well as having a high rate of "hidden" joblessness.

Just eight countries of the EU's 27 member states have a worse rate of male unemployment than Britain, the study showed.

Only Estonia, Latvia, Italy, Austria and Poland had higher rates of economic inactivity, and Britain's total — which the CIPD said showed the number of jobless who are missed in official figures — accounted for one in seven of Europe's entire figure.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May today accused the Government of failing to tackle the issue of hidden unemployment.

She said it would miss its target of getting one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015 by 700,000.

"There are 2.3 million people in this country who want to work who are not in work and who are not counted in the unemployment figures," she said.

"And in those figures of course, one group for which unemployment has been rising in recent months has been those on incapacity benefit."

New unemployment figures are published on Wednesday.

Dr John Philpott, the CIPD's chief economic adviser, said: "The UK may draw comfort from having lower measured unemployment than the EU average but in truth we are no better than a mid-table performer in the EU jobless league.

"Taking hidden joblessness into account makes the UK's relative performance look less impressive still, and once again highlights the scale of the macroeconomic and employment policy challenge that awaits us in the next few years."