From January to March this year, 80 percent of the jobs cut from payroll in the UK were held by employees under the age of 35, according to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics. A total of 811,000 jobs were lost, with 635,000 held by under-35s and 436,000 or 54 percent held by those under 25.

This is in line with figures over the past year, which show that the largest falls in payrolled employment were in the hospitality sector and among those aged under 25.

The ONS attributed the disproportionate burden on younger people to a change in the profile of employee jobs in the economy. The number and proportion of lower-paid jobs has fallen, particularly in sectors such as retail and hospitality which employed a large number of young people in lower-paid jobs and were hit hard by the pandemic.

The data also shows that the number of job vacancies during the January-March period is 23 percent lower than in 2020, with arts, entertainment, and recreation and accommodation and food service jobs—also industries that tend to employ a large number of younger people—persistently not recovering.

The impact on people aged under 35 is all the more a sore thumb because overall unemployment had actually fallen very slightly in the preceding months and was estimated at 4.9 percent in March, down from 5 percent in December. At the same time, median monthly pay had increased by 5.4 percent.

The BBC reported that Suren Thiru, Head of Economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, had flagged out the impact on younger people as being a potential long-term problem. He said:  “Although the furlough scheme will limit the peak in job losses, the longer-term structural unemployment caused by Covid-19, particularly among young people, may mean that the road back to pre-pandemic levels lags behind the wider economic recovery.”