The youngest and oldest portions of the UK’s workforce face the toughest fight against long term unemployment.

Analysis by the Trades Union Congress has found it is increasingly difficult for the under 24s and over 50s to find work if they lose their jobs.

The number of people aged 18 to 24 unemployed for six months, and from six months to a year, are rising faster than for the general population. There was a 13 percent quarterly increase in the number of young people unemployed for up to 6 months, and a six percent increase in the number of young people unemployed for six to 12 months.

Among older workers there was a quarterly increase of 30 percent in the number of workers over 50 who are unemployed for six to 12 months.

There has also been a 23 percent quarterly increase in redundancies, with 156,000 posts being made redundant during the quarter to September 2008.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "These are dire figures. High unemployment is going to be with us for some time now. It is not just an economic problem, but a social problem too. The rise in long-term youth unemployment is particularly worrying.

"We welcome the Government's decision to boost funding for Jobcentre Plus rapid response units, but more needs to be done to help the unemployed. There is a strong case for increasing benefits as part of a wider stimulus to the economy.

"Unemployment figures are seen as the scrounger count by some and poverty level benefits are considered a way to drive people back to work. While always wrong, this argument now looks desperately out of touch. More than a 1,000 people a day are now finding themselves unemployed through no fault of their own. And as today's figures show, they face a long hard struggle to get a new job."