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One in four Britons out of work



August 16, 2007 17:28 IST



One in four Britons is jobless. According to official figures released by the UK government, nearly ten million adults in Britain are jobless.



There're 1.65 million people who are unemployed, with a further 7.9 million defined as 'economically inactive', the official figures revealed.



The second group includes over two million people who are on long-term sickness benefits as well as students and people who have taken early retirement. Reacting to the revelation, opposition politicians in the UK have said that "the figures exposed the true scale of hidden joblessness under Labour".



"The (nearly 10 million) people of working age not working in Britain today represent a huge pool of wasted talent. Many of these people could work, and would want to work, if given the right incentives and support.



"Gordon Brown's 'New Deal' is failing, with only one in five lone parents on it getting a proper job. But the Prime Minister seems determined to block the radical welfare reforms that would help millions of these back to work," Philip Hammond of the Conservative Party was quoted by The Daily Telegraph' as saying in London.



Even business organisations have voiced concern. "The rising number of people classified as economically inactive is worrying. Whilst we accept that many people cannot work for valid reasons..., there are many more that are claiming welfare in one form or another," Kieran O' Keeffe, the policy adviser at the British Chambers of Commerce, was quoted as saying.



"These represent a 'hidden unemployed', lost within the complexity of official statistics. This underlines the urgent need to find a long-term solution to welfare dependency, which if left unchecked will condemn a growing proportion of the working population to a cycle of low aspiration and worklessness," Keeffe said.



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