AI, Covid and taxes: what is behind steep rise in youth unemployment?

View of exterior of student library at Edinburgh University, Scotland. Recent graduates are finding it tough to get into work. Photograph: Iain Masterton/Alamy

Youth unemployment is at the highest level since the Covid pandemic, as younger people bear the brunt of a worsening slowdown in the UK jobs market.

Excluding the peak recorded during the autumn of 2020, when the country was entering the second pandemic lockdown, the jobless rate for 16 to 24-year-olds – running at 15.3% – is at the highest level in a decade.