CRI听力:UK Unemployment Doing Permanent Damage

These high levels of unemployment also come at a cost to the taxpayer, as the UK government is having to put more money into the welfare system to cover unemployment costs.

Experts say the longer high rates of unemployment last in the UK, the longer it could take to get people back into the workforce.

Professor Eric Pentecost is from the school of Business and Economics at Loughborough University, he says even a short term recession can cause long-lasting high unemployment.

"Even if the economy picks up in five years time, those people will never work, it will be a persistent higher level of unemployment. Which as I said that then damages capacity. It goes back if you look at the early 1980's under Mrs Thatcher we need very high rates of unemployment. That lasted for 10 years."

Estimates of GDP growth between September 2010 and March 2012 show that the level of economic activity in the economy has remained the same.
Professor Pentecost says the government needs to focus more on stimulating economic growth.

"Firstly the government is completely obsessed with this budget deficit and the debt that they have to pay. And so the government are cutting demand and cutting spending, they've raised taxes so the actual public demand is actually decreasing. Now in a recession you do the opposite when public demand declines governments intervene, buy more. Only in the short term to keep the economy going and this governments acting completely in reverse."

With this need for increased productivity in mind, other world economies such as China could help assist the UK's recovery.

Professor Yao is an economist and the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham.

He says China is already bringing investment into the UK.

"For the Chinese actually they already took advantage of the recession in the UK by buying cheap assets and by buying in a company who are struggling for example like Rover. China and UK already have a very close relationship, the question is although the gross is already very high, but because the initial stage is very small the impact of investment into the UK is significant, but its not to the point where they are going to turn the UK economy upside down."

And with the UK economy entering a double dip recession, much of the country's working population are now forced to wait for the economy and jobs to pick up again.

For CRI, I'm Rebecca Hume.