A THINK-TANK has called for decisive Government intervention after the release of official unemployment figures showing that as many as 35 jobseekers are chasing every vacancy in one part of Scotland.

No area in the UK fared as badly as Clackmannanshire, but other parts of Scotland were also among the worst-affected areas, including the affluent region of East Renfrewshire, where the figure reached 20, Inverclyde and East Ayrshire (18), and West Dunbartonshire (17).

In both Glasgow (4609 vacancies and 24,874 claimants) and Edinburgh (2324 vacancies, 11,650 claimants) the ratio of jobseekers to vacancies was five to one, while it was 10 in the Borders, Fife and Dundee.

Aberdeen, by contrast, was among the areas with two or fewer jobseekers for each vacancy, along with Surrey, Windsor and Maidenhead, Westminster, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and City of London. The national average of job- seekers to vacancies is currently six to one.

Ed Cox, director of IPPR North, which compiled the figures, said: "There must be more targeted help for struggling regions, otherwise we are in real danger of not only betraying a whole generation of people who can't find work but of ignoring the very places that could help grow the UK economy.

"The longer someone is unemployed, the less likely they are to ever return to work. Being out of work for more than a year can have a scarring effect, making it harder to get a job as well as having a negative impact on one's health and wellbeing.

"This means that even when employment starts to pick up again, they will find it hard to compete with other jobseekers and could find themselves permanently shut out of the jobs market."

IPPR North found that unemployment north of the Border increased by 7%, with 15,000 more people unemployed than a year ago.

This compares to increases of 22% in the English north-west, 13% in the north-east and 13% in London; and, at the other end of the scale, an increase of just 2% in the south-east and a decline of 4.7% in the west Midlands.

The think-tank urged the UK Government to extend the "youth contract" to guarantee a job to everyone out of work for more than a year, targeting the worst-affected areas first.

IPPR North's plan for jobs growth in the most at-risk areas includes a job paid at the minimum wage or above to anyone who has been claiming jobseekers' allowance for more than 12 consecutive months.

It also includes "innovation clusters" in specific areas, focused around, for example, renewable energy, a regional investment bank, and the bringing forward of capital spending on infrastructure projects.