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Unemployment falls 7.8%

Unemployment fell 7.8% between October and December 2012, figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

Employment was highest in the South East (75%) and lowest in the North East (67.7%). Overall, there were 29.73m people in employment, and 27% were working part-time.

Neil Carberry, CBI Director for Employment and Skills, said: “It’s pleasing to see businesses are continuing to create jobs, though the weakness of pay growth shows we are not out of the woods yet.

“It is particularly good that so much of this month’s jobs growth is driven by full timers, given worries about under-employment. It’s also good news that jobs are being created in most regions across the country.”

Nick Bunting, CEO of The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (The Prince’s Initiative), said: “We welcome the news that both employment has gone up and unemployment has been driven down, giving the UK economy a much-needed boost.

“However, this doesn’t explain the entire story and when you take a closer look at the number of those claiming Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), a different picture emerges.

“The number of people over the age of 50 claiming job seekers allowance has gone up over the last year by 8 per cent and what is more of a concern is that this age group has more long-term claimants compared to those aged between 18 and 24.

“There are schemes specifically for young people to get back into work and we would like to see the Government pay the same attention on mature people. The over 50s can make an important contribution to the UK economy as they have the right skills and experience to help drive the country forward.”

Tony Dolphin, IPPR chief economist, commented: “Despite the rises in employment, unemployment is still 2.5 million, higher than it was two years ago. And vulnerable groups are still finding it hard to compete. Youth unemployment stopped falling several months ago (it was up 11,000 in the last quarter and long-term youth unemployment was up 10,000).

“There has been only a relatively small fall in long-term unemployment. The Government needs to redouble its efforts to support these groups, who are at risk of permanent ‘scarring’ in the labour market.

“The Youth Contract and the Work Programme appear to be delivering disappointing results. IPPR has long argued for a job guarantee, paid at the minimum wage or above, for any person who has been out of work and claiming JSA for more than a year, with an obligation on the part of the unemployed person to take the job or find an alternative. The Labour Party has recently adopted a more limited version of the same idea. Now is the time for the government to bring in such a guarantee.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .