There certainly are jobs out there in my experience. I know retail is not everyone's cup of tea, but my bro has real trouble getting staff.
In fairness, not lack of people applying, but most CVs end up shredded before he's finished reading them, due to appalling grammar, spelling and punctuation. He is, rightly IMHO, of the opinion, if they can't be arsed to put effort into a CV, he can't be arsed to read them. The number that he receives that are written like "I want this job bcoz it wud b gud 4 me and 4 u". Binned. Those that get to interviews, it seems a lot of school/uni leavers think the world owes them, and that they will be able to sit on Facebook all day.
Because I work in IT, we have loads of school leavers and gap-year people wanting to join us, without pay (fair play to them) to get experience. But with a few exceptions, many don't want to actually get up off their arses, and want to sit playing games all day.
I think the problem with school leavers, and to a lesser extent, uni leavers, is the education system does not prepare them for work.
As to benefits, their are plenty of people claiming good money because they either don't want to do the jobs offered, or simply because they do not want to work. Tunnie does present a valid point, but doesn't get it over very well.
Albs hit the nail on the head, we need to be able to pick out the lame and the lazy from the needy, and do something that way. "No jobs" isn't valid IME, more "No jobs what I want to do for the money I think I deserve". But we must not forget the truely needy.