Lost Generation? David Blanchflower warns of the ‘lull before the storm’

And the panellists, including; Stephen Timms MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury; David Willetts MP, Shadow Minister for Universities and Skills; Miles Templeman, Director-General of the Institute of Directors and Wes Streeting, President of the National Union of Students, agreed. Willetts acknowledging, ‘young people are the clear victims in this recession’.

With youth unemployment nudging one million people, Blanchflower warned that more needs to be done to support young people, stressing that, ‘we have to deal with this situation now because the costs of not dealing with it are even more serious.’

v’s Chief Executive Terry Ryall supported this analysis, saying, ‘we know from our work with 100,000s of young people that the recession is hitting them hard’.

v used the special event to call for funding and cross party political support to implement a unified national public service scheme, building on the success of our full-time volunteering programme ‘vtalent year’. Targeted at the most disadvantaged and marginalised - who will be the most vulnerable when the job market recovers - such a scheme could make a significant impact on the lives of young people as well as all the issues surrounding youth unemployment.

Watch Professor Blanchflower’s keynote address here.