UNEMPLOYED YOUTH

Southland Times, Issue 19280, 26 June 1924, Page 6

UNEMPLOYED YOUTH

GRAVE PROBLEMS IN SOOTIuAND. A grave feature of the unemployment problem is that more than 40 per cent of the unemployed in Scotland are young men between the ages of 18 and 28 (says the Scotsman). In seven towns there are 13,444 young men between 18 and 25 who were unemployed, and of that number, 60.6 per cent are unskilled. This number represents 40.7 per cent of the total registration. In Edinburgh 40 per cent of those on the register are under 28, and 46.9 per cent of them tre unskilled. In one place in Scotland the percentage of unskilled is as high as 88 per cent. The significance of these figures can hardly be missed. Before the war the term “unskilled” was generally applied to labourers, who, though not being apprentices, had a measure of skill and training. The plasterer’s labourer and the engineer’s labourer, though “unskilled,” had a practical knowledge which an untrained man did not possess:. To-day the young men between 18 and 28 who are “unskilled” have not had the opportunity of employment, and are without that considerable degree of technical knowledge possessed by the plasterer's or the engineer’s labourer. Many of these men entered the Army in 1914, and find themselves, 10 years later, without the prospect of being trained to follow a trade. Their position is deplorable.