This article reveals the high levels of poverty and youth unemployment in rural Scotland. There are very few job opportunities in the area, and as a result, official figures in March revealed that 103,000 people aged between 16 and 24 are out of work in Scotland. Due to the high levels of unemployment, the rural areas are in severe poverty.
Unemployment and poverty are two economic issues that are very telling of a nation’s current economic state.The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labor force. Unemployment is a gauge of joblessness and thus representative of the economy’s growth rate. Poverty, moreover, is defined as the lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. This includes not having enough to clothe or feed a family, not having proper education or medical attention, etc. Some of the economic costs of poverty include a reduced productivity and economic output, increased costs of crime and increased health expenditures.
The resolution I suggest, which they briefly touch upon in the article, is to bring more economic activity to the rural areas. The article states that job opportunities really only exist in the inner cities, especially with the large focus on the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Therefore, as the article states, the government needs to steer companies into those areas. There are already existing rural colleges, including Queen Margaret University and Highlands and Islands University. Therefore, these two universities should be better advertised/promoted to bring more students to the universities, and in turn create more of an incentive for companies to build up the area. Due to the significant number of young people unemployed, the companies that are geared toward the rural areas need to be aimed at employing the younger population. I think that building up these rural areas into university towns will be very beneficial to youth employment. This in turn will create more jobs and help improve the means to surpass poverty.
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