Employment growth continuing
New figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that the number of people in employment is up, with more job vacancies than a year ago.
30,000 more people are in employment than in the previous quarter, meaning that 74.8 per cent of the working population are employed.
The unemployment rate, as compared to the previous period, is unchanged but the number of people unemployed is down by 9000.
Numbers claiming unemployment benefit also fell to its lowest level since 1975.
When bonuses are included, the growth of earnings is down by nearly one per cent, but excluding bonuses the average wage growth is up to 4.1 per cent from last month’s figure of 3.9 per cent.
Work and Pensions Minister Jane Kennedy welcomed the figures. She said: “Unemployment is the lowest for about 30 years and continues to fall. There has been a major improvement in long-term unemployment, which is a quarter of the level it was seven years ago,”
“This has been made possible by our economic success combined with policies such as the New Deal that have given new opportunities to those who find it difficult to get back to work. With long-term unemployment at its lowest for three decades, we are building on the success of New Deal, focusing resources on the hardest to help and using local solutions to deal with local problems,”
The picture is mixed across the country, with an increase in the unemployment rate in Scotland.
It rose by 8000 to 152,000 north of the border, leaving the rate at 5.9 per cent.
Scotland Office Minister Anne McGuire said: ” While I am obviously disappointed to see a rise in unemployment, we should remember that it has fallen by 58,000 since spring 1997 and is forecast to fall further over the next two years. Indeed, the claimant count rate is currently the lowest for 29 years.”
In bad news for the Government, the ONS figures also showed that the number of manufacturing jobs now stand at the lowest point since records began in 1978.
Paul Holmes, Liberal Democrat spokesman on work, seized on the figures, saying: “For all the Government’s crowing on employment, the manufacturing industry in Britain is collapsing.
“More must be done to help the real economy of our towns and rural areas. Small scale factory closures can have a huge detrimental effect on the local community as the high-profile collapses that make news headlines.”
