Life on the frontline in Britain's unemployment benefits hotspots


Life on the frontline in Britain

18 November 2024 Residents living on the frontlines of Britain's unemployment benefit hotspots have said youngsters would rather reap the profits of drug dealing than work. MailOnline canvassed local views after exclusively revealing Britain's unemployment benefit hotspots - with some areas seeing rates soar by over a third in the last year. House of Commons library analysis showed the hotspot constituencies across the UK, with more than 1.8million people getting government support. Birmingham and London dominated the top 20, with Perry Barr claiming the top spot for high unemployment rates. There, some 16.3 per cent of the working age population receive unemployment benefits. Tottenham and Barnsley also proved to be job deserts with benefit rates surging in the respective areas. And now MailOnline has taken to the streets of the country's unemployment benefit hotspots to unveil what life is like on the frontline. In Barnsley, 40,000 of working-age adults are out of work, with 42 per cent of working-age adults economically inactive due to long-term sickness or disability. It has one of the lowest employment levels in the whole of Yorkshire at 71.9 per cent. Only Rotherham and Bradford were lower at 68.8 and 68.1 percent respectively, according to Government data. The South Yorkshire town has never fully recovered after mines closed in the mid 1980s. The townsfolk have blamed the excruciatingly high unemployment rates on a lack of industry in the town, since many businesses up and left after the coal mines shut up shop. However rapidly vanishing industries are not only to blame, as locals believe some youngsters would prefer to deal drugs than work. Retired welder James Houlton, 82, who worked in the mining industry for five decades lays blame with people having 'no motivation' to be employed. The great grandfather, who first started working in the coal mines at the age of 15 told MailOnline: 'They don't want to work. They get too much money not working. They have no motivation.