UNIONS hit out at an “epidemic of insecure work” as the economic fallout from the Iran war was revealed for the first time today.

Youth unemployment has risen to its highest rate in more than a decade with one in seven (14.7 per cent) 16 to 24-year-olds looking for work.

Zero-hours contracts have hit a record high of 1.23 million — up 65,000 on the year.

The first official statistics since the war broke out in late February also showed job vacancies down to their lowest level for 11 years outside of the pandemic. They fell by 28,000 to 705,000 in the three months ending in March.

Youngsters looking for their first job face a fiercely competitive jobs market with 22.7 per cent now out of work for more than a year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found.

Retail and hospitality firms suffered some of the largest falls in payroll numbers and vacancies, the data showed.

Overall unemployment meanwhile crept up to 5 per cent over the quarter, reversing a fall since the start of the year.

Bosses slashed the number of payrolled employees by 100,000 between March and April as real pay growth dropped to -0.1 per cent in the private sector and slowed in the public sector.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “The ongoing economic fallout from Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran risks dashing hopes of a stabilising jobs market.

“There is an epidemic of insecure work in this country. 

“That’s why the government needs to deliver on its promise to give all workers a right to a contract which reflects their regular hours and end the scourge of insecure work for good.”

He warned young people shouldn’t have to wait for 18 months before getting access to the Jobs Guarantee, adding: “The government needs to double-down on delivering good, secure, and well-paid jobs across the country and driving forward change in young people’s life chances.”

In March, the leader of the shop workers’ union Usdaw, Joanne Thomas, wrote to PM Sir Keir Starmer saying that she is “frustrated” over a Labour U-turn over the policy to give all workers a right to a contract that reflect the hours they normally work.

She warned including a minimal hours threshold within the Employment Rights Act policy may “actually have unintended consequences of making working hours less secure than they are now, for the most vulnerable workers.”

Today she said that a consultation is now expected “on how the right to a contract that reflects the number of hours you normally work will be implemented. 

“We believe that the government must apply this right to all workers, which is what was promised in the Labour manifesto,” she said.

“If the government restricts the right to workers who are contracted to a low number of hours it will create a major loophole that will undermine the right and cause serious difficulties for our members.”

A government-ordered review on youth unemployment led by social mobility expert Alan Milburn “will play a key role in looking how to prevent young people falling out of work or education,” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters.

Both the Milburn review and another led by Sir Stephen Timms examining health and disability benefits are due to be published this autumn.

Work Foundation director Ben Harrison said: “Today’s labour market figures underline the importance of government remaining focused on the challenges facing young people in accessing sustainable and well-paid work. 

“In particular, for young people, it’s critical that the Youth Guarantee offers genuine pathways to secure and good quality work, while the Milburn Review provides an opportunity to address the underlying barriers separating too many young people from the jobs market.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden stressed that the latest figures also showed 416,000 more people in work than a year ago.

Communist Party general secretary Alex Gordon said the unemployment and real wages figures “explain precisely why workers reject Keir Starmer’s continuity neoliberal project. 

“Labour’s hollow election promise to ‘Make Work Pay’ was deliberately sabotaged in their Employment Rights Act, which focused on individual employment rights, not the collective power of workers to fight for higher pay,” he added.

“A second Employment Rights Bill is now being demanded by some trades unions to address this glaring absence”