LONG-term unemployment among young women has soared across the county under the Coalition, Labour is claiming.

And it seized on the figure in the key Bradford West constituency to make the case that “women have been badly let down by David Cameron”.

Gloria De Piero, Labour’s Bradford-born spokeswoman for women, said that, in Bradford West, were no 18 to 24-year-old women on job seeker’s allowance for more than a year, back in 2010.

But, almost five years later, there were 290 women in that age bracket who have been out of work for at least 12 months.

And, across the Yorkshire region, long-term unemployment among young women had soared by 66 per cent.

Miss De Piero, who will visit the city today in a pink Woman to Woman campaign bus, said: “Young women have been badly neglected by the Tories, but the next Labour government will provide them with the help they need.”

Labour has promised a compulsory jobs guarantee, offering every young person out of work for more than 12 months a paid job - work they will have to take up or lose benefits.

But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the figures were distorted because, under Labour, young people about to reach 12 months on the dole had been shifted onto a ‘training allowance’.

A spokesman said: "The truth is, women are in work in record numbers and the majority of growth over the past four years has been in managerial and professional jobs."