Why Britons are right to worry about unemployment

A CHILL wind sweeps the land: Britain is set for another recession. Growth targets look certain to be downgraded as Britain's strong banking and trade links with its neighbours see it sucked into a Europe-wide downturn. The nation looks likely to enter a long period of malaise.

If people seem relatively unconcerned about the nation's economic prospects, according to the latest The Economist/Ipsos-MORI poll, it is only because it was conducted between November 11th and 17th, before the extent to which the country's entanglement in the unfolding euro-disaster became apparent. And the results are hardly upbeat: although concerns about the state of the economy were down six percentage points, the issue remained the nation's primary concern and has topped the worry list for the past three years, ever since Britain last slid into recession at the end of 2008. Almost two-thirds of those polled rated it as being one of their main concerns.

Meanwhile fears about unemployment have risen two percentage points to their highest in 13 years. The poll was taken just weeks after youth unemployment passed the one million mark, and it identifies how unemployment is a greater concern for young people than it is for oldsters: 43% of 18- to 24-year-olds mentioned it as one of their most prominent worries, compared to 27% of those who had reach retirement age. Overall a third of adults were troubled by it. Unease about unemployment looks set to continue because joblessness tends to outlast economic recessions.

And anguish about the euro has resurfaced—rightly—as a top-ten worry for the first time since June 2005.

It is all rather gloomy. To quote the 19th-century English poet Thomas Hood:

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member—

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds—

November!

Alas, that which ails Britain will not pass with the month.