Jobless Households In Liverpool, Nottingham And Glasgow: One In Three

Figures show Liverpool with the highest number of workless households in five of the last seven years.












Inside a Jobcentre. Around a third of unemployed people are sick or disabled.

Almost a third of households in Liverpool, Nottingham and Glasgow were classed as workless in 2010, against one in nine in other regions, the Office for National Statistics has said. For Liverpool and Glasgow the figure fell from 32.1% and 31.1% to 31.9% and 30.7%, while for Nottingham it rose from 31.3% to 31.6%. Liverpool has had the highest number of workless households in five of the past seven years. Around a third not working in Liverpool and Glasgow were sick or disabled, the same as the national figure., while 43% of people in workless households in Nottingham gave study as their main reason, compared with 12% nationally. Areas with the fewest workless households were Oxfordshire, Surrey and Aberdeen, and north-east Moray, all around 11%. The national figure for workless households is 18.9%.

Childcare Costs Mean A Choice Of Debt Or Unemployment For Many Parents

Rather than facilitating work, the huge cost of childcare in the UK is a daunting obstacle – and government cuts worsen the bind.












David Cameron visits a nursery in London. His government's reduction of tax credits has made childcare even more costly for working parents.

I could understand why my bank manager was looking at me like that. It did sound a bit stupid. "You're about to start a job, and that means you need to extend your overdraft?" he said, dubiously. After years of scratching around as a student, I was finally about to draw a wage – but first, I needed to get myself just a bit deeper in debt.

I have two children, so before I could set foot in my office, I needed somewhere to put them, and childcare has to be paid for in advance. That's no minor outlay here in the UK, where we have the highest childcare costs relative to household income of anywhere in the world. A survey by the Daycare Trust and Save the Children explains how much of a barrier and a burden this can be, particularly to families on low incomes. Of the parents questioned, a quarter said that the cost of childcare had caused them to get into debt, but it's the poorest families (those with a household income of less than £12,000 a year) who experience the most crippling effects.

While the better off may have to compromise on swimming lessons or music tuition to cope with higher-than-inflation rises in nursery fees, the more impoverished are often forced to cut back on essentials such as food or heating to make up the difference. And sometimes, ends simply can't be met: a quarter of those in severe poverty said that they had given up work because of childcare costs. A third of them had passed on a job offer for the same reason, and a quarter reported that the expense of childcare had prevented them from taking up education or training.

Rather than facilitating work, childcare becomes a daunting obstacle, keeping parents out of the workplace – and the poorer a family is, the more likely it is to remain in poverty for the lack of money to cover nursery fees. Single-parent families without savings or access to credit are effectively shut out of work.

The government likes to talk about getting people off welfare and into the workplace. "Over the last decade, thousands of people were simply abandoned to a lifetime on benefits, and a staggering 1.84 million children are living in homes where no one works," said employment minister Chris Grayling last week. Rightwing analyses talk about the "lack of work ethic … helping to fuel levels of unemployment".

But it's practical, financial limitations more than nebulous psychological causes that are often keeping parents from becoming employees, and the government's actions so far seem likely to worsen the childcare bind. Working tax credit was sliced in this year's budget, so that it now covers only 70% rather than 80% of childcare costs – a huge difference in the finances of those who need help the most. As the cuts agenda combines with a sneering rhetoric of disdain for the unemployed, this just seems like one more way of keeping the poorest poor, from cradle to grave.

Gender Pay Gap 'To Last 98 Years'

Women face a wait of almost 100 years for equal pay, according to a new study which shows female executives earn £10,000 less than their male counterparts. Channel 4 News looks at why.













Men doing the same jobs as women at executive level are paid £10,546 more on average, the survey found.

Men took home on average £42,441, while women only made £31,895, according to the study by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). It means the average male executive earns 25 per cent more than his female equivalent.

It remains a significant gap, but the CMI said it is narrowing, with salaries for women increasing 0.3 per cent faster than men. If this continues at the current rate it will be 2109 - 98 years - before the gap is closed.

There was some good news for women in the survey of 35,000 executives, with junior female executives bucking the trend to earn the same as their male counterparts. The CMI said this was a sign men and women now grow up on a "more equal footing".

Its director of policy and research, Petra Wilton, told Channel 4 News: "Our hope is that this trend for both equal pay and equal representation follows this younger generation of female executives right through their careers as they climb through levels of seniority."

Unequal workplaces

However she said that the figures still showed that the workplace remains an unequal place.

The CMI figures back up the World Economic Forum's data for 2010, which found that the UK was 60th in the world in terms of gender pay equality - 17 places below Ireland, but above France, which was 127th. Lesotho and Macedonia were the top two most equal countries in terms of pay.

Why should a woman take on a director-level position when the likelihood is still that she will be paid less than the man sitting next to her at the boardroom table? Sandra Pollock, CMI

Ms Wilton said: "This year's salary survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally.

"This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed."

Sandra Pollock, national chair of the CMI's Women in Management network, added: "Why should a woman take on the responsibilities of a director-level position when the likelihood is still that she will be paid significantly less than the man sitting next to her at the boardroom table?

"Too often managers are male and aged 45 plus and we are fighting an ongoing war to ensure that professions attract people based on their talent and not their age or gender."

The research found that redundancy hit men and women across age groups equally in the last year. However the figures showed women at more senior levels were almost twice as likely to have been made redundant than men - and five times as many female company directors as male directors lost their jobs over the last year.











Christina Ioannidis experienced gender discrimination before setting up her own business, Aquitude, which helps organisations like Accenture and Barclays Bank retain their top female talent.

She told Channel 4 News: "My role was made redundant - about two months before a man had been brought in to be my manager. He stayed in the business even though I had been there a while.

"It threw me. I didn't make too much of it at the time but as I left I realised it actually happens again and again that women are on the receiving end of unfair treatment."

She said businesses need to realise the value of talented female executives - and customers. A Government report in February called for companies to aim for one in four of its board members to be women by 2015.

Why are women paid less?

The CMI urged the Government to demand more transparency on pay from companies rather than imposing mandatory quotas. Firms found guilty of fuelling the gender pay gap should be publicly exposed, the organisation said. The CMI itself offers help to women to challenge unequal pay.

And it said that as society gets more equal across the board, pay should follow. "Where representation is equal, it's easier for women to be treated, and to demand to be treated, equally," Petra Wilton told Channel 4 News.

One of the other factors often cited as a reason why women earn less than men is because women often take time out to have children. Some women never return to the corporate world ,while others take a few years before going back.

CMI said "the onus is on the Government" to change this culture.

"Until paternity laws are overhauled so they fit the modern workforce and flexible working is more widely accommodated, women will continue to have to make choices once they start families which will reduce their numbers at more senior levels," said Ms Wilton.

"The onus is on the Government and employers to ensure they start to implement the changes that mean the pay gap stays shut at junior levels and closes up at other levels of seniority."

David Cameron Admits Job Programmes 'Aren't Working'

Nearly 2.5 million 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work, according to the latest official figures.

It's the highest number of jobless young people since records began in the early 90s.












One youth charity says there are now enough young unemployed people to fill every football stadium in the Premier League, with almost 200,000 left queuing outside.

We've been to the Cabinet Office at Number 10 Downing Street putting your worries about joblessness to the prime minister.


PM: "These are bad figures. Youth unemployment has been going up for the last 10 years in good years and bad."

NEWSBEAT: "You're in charge now though."

PM: "Absolutely and we have to take a really deep look at what's been going wrong.

"I think it's partly the welfare system that doesn't encourage people into work.

"The work programmes we've been running have been churning people through a programme but not getting them a proper job.

"And frankly, education hasn't been good enough. Now what are we going to do about it?"










NEWSBEAT: "One thing you've done is you've cut the Future Jobs Fund..."

PM: "The Future Jobs Fund was one of the most ineffective jobs funds there have been. It cost five times as much as other schemes."

NEWSBEAT: "Before the election you said it was a good thing."

PM: "Well, I've looked at the figures now, and in some cities only 3% of the jobs were actually in the private sector.

"The really damning evidence is it's a six month programme but one month after the programme half the people on it were back on the dole. It failed, it didn't work."

David Cameron's also been telling Newsbeat about his plans for school-leavers in their holidays.

He wants 11,000 people doing their GCSEs this summer to sign up on Facebook for a two month stint of community service and outdoor activities in the summer.

School-leavers in Birmingham weren't sure about the idea, saying things like: "Eight weeks is a really long time," "I want to enjoy my summer - go on holiday. This is just something I just wouldn't do - ever."

But the Prime Minister told Newsbeat: "This is an exciting challenge. This is one period in your life where you go out, leave your home environment, mix with different people and do something different."

"I pretty much bet you," he added "that young people will come forward in huge numbers and do it, and enjoy it".