This is proof that young people really have been hardest hit by the pandemic

The majority of pandemic job losses have happened to young people.

According to figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), 88 per cent of employee job losses from February 2020 to February 2021 were among 18 to 35 year-olds.

Some 63 per cent of job losses happened to those aged 25 and younger. Meanwhile, a quarter of losses were present among people aged between 25 and 34.

A total of 693,000 people lost their jobs in this period. Meanwhile, approximately 11.2 million jobs from 1.3million different employers were furloughed as part of the government’s job retention scheme.

The news also comes on the first anniversary of the national lockdown, which has seen non-essential businesses and offices closed for the majority of the year. The pandemic led the UK economy to shrink the most it has in three centuries and – due to unprecedented government spending – public debt soared to the highest rate since the early 1960s.

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Indeed, the OBR has forecast GDP to remain 3 per cent below its pre-pandemic trend in 2024, showing that the economic reverberations of the pandemic will continue in years to come.

Now, it is demonstrably clear that it is the nation’s youth that has born the brunt of this economic downturn.

But hey, at least they might get half-price Nandos, again.

More: Bereavement during lockdown: Is grieving alone contributing to the UK’s current mental health crisis?