(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-03 19:52

BEIJING -- More than half a million young Britons are too sick to work and claim incapacity benefits, higher than the number claiming unemployment benefit, according to media reports Thursday.

Up-to-date figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that 504,000 people below the age of 35 were claiming incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance compared with 443,000 claiming job hunter's allowance in May of 2007.

The figures show continuing high level of worklessness among the youth though they include more than 300,000 young people claiming for "mental and behavioral disorders." The figure of worklessness is still high in spite of 10 years of steady economic growth and a concerted attempt to move people off welfare and into work.

It suggests that the nation may be incubating a whole new generation of claimants as former industrial workers reach pensionable age.

Sue Christoforou, of mental health charity Mind, said: "Society is much faster paced, the workplace is more competitive, and there are more short-term contracts."

Paul Bivand, a welfare-to-work expert at Inclusion, a think-tank, said: "There is a second generation of people coming onto incapacity benefits for mental reasons. This may well be related to ingrained hopelessness in particular areas."

But others said the high level of worklessness may be due to the EU expansion since May 2004. There are suspicions that some UK workers are being forced out of the jobs market by migrants.