🚨 THE UK IS IN A FULL BLOWN UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS. UK companies cut 13,000 jobs in June and another 13,000 in July. Unemployment is 4.9%. Job openings fell to 707,000, the lowest since 2014 apart from the pandemic. Young people are taking the worst of it. Youth unemployment is 16.1%, the highest since 2014, and now above the EU average for the first time ever. Almost a million people aged 16 to 24 are not working or studying. Graduate jobs fell 33% last year to the lowest level since 2018. All this is happening while the economy is growing. But why is this happening? Hiring got expensive. The government raised employer National Insurance and the minimum wage at the same time energy bills climbed. Companies stopped replacing anyone who leaves. Pay tells the same story. Private sector wages grew 2.8%, the slowest since 2020. Public sector wages grew 6.2%. This is where it gets dangerous. PwC estimates the youth jobs crisis alone costs the UK economy £26 billion a year in lost output and higher welfare spending. The UK 30 year borrowing cost sits near 5.45%, the highest since 1998. Fewer workers means less tax revenue, which means more borrowing at those rates.