IF YOU had to pick the group which was hardest hit by the recession, it would be young people. Over the last few years, jobs for school leavers and those graduating from college or university have been desperately hard to come by.

Youth unemployment, and the numbers of so-called NEETS (young people “not in employment, education or training”) has been one of the defining factors of the last few years.

Recently, there have been a few encouraging signs that the employment prospects for young people may at last be beginning to brighten, at least a little.

Still, this hardly seems the right time to be cutting support for the younger generation.

Documents provided to The Press by York’s Liberal Democrat group suggest that this is precisely what Labour in York is proposing in its next budget.

The Liberal Democrats have been a bit mischievous, adding up already-planned reductions for 2014/5 with proposals for 2015/16.

Labour stresses that the 2015/16 measures – which could see the budget for school improvements cut by £350,000, that for children’s centres reduced by £400,000, and that for youth services by £500,000 – are just that: proposals.

Nothing has been decided yet. If that is the case, we hope Labour might look at its 2015/16 budget again.

We know local authorities up and down the country are desperately short of cash, and that their central government funding is being constantly squeezed. Nevertheless, our young people are going to need all the help they get if they are to cope in a hard, post-recession world.

They shouldn’t be the ones bearing the brunt of yet more cuts. They really shouldn’t.