Latest employment figures released

Wednesday 20th January 2010, 12:16PM GMT.

job_centreUnemployment has fallen for the first time in almost two years with fewer people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, new figures have revealed today.

But the number of unemployed people, at 2.46 million, is still more than half-a-million higher than a year ago.

The number of people out of work in the three months to November was cut by 7,000, although the rate remained unchanged at 7.8 per cent.

And the claimant count fell for the second month in a row in December, down by 15,200 to 1.61 million, the biggest monthly fall since April 2007.

In Shropshire and Mid Wales, the number of jobless actually rose by 12 claimants to a total of 11,398.

There was also an increase in the number of people claiming the allowance in the Telford area.

The figures showed there were 10 fewer claimants in Shropshire leaving a total of 4,788, in Powys the number of people claiming the allowance dropped by 13 to 2,028 in December.

In Telford & Wrekin, the number of claimants rose by 35 from 4,547 in November to 4,582 last month.

The Office of National Statistics released the figures as Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned the patience of households would be “sorely tried” in the years ahead as the UK claws back from recession.

The country is likely to face rising inflation in the first half of the year, as well as possible tax hikes amid efforts to restore the public finances, he said.

But he also warned: “There is little scope for growth in real take-home pay, which may remain weak even as output recovers.”

Mr King said there was a “perfectly sensible debate” over when emergency help for the economy should end.


  1. 1
    Dan

    If any government told me it was raining, I would be morally obliged to go outside and check for myself. I don’t believe government figures at all, regardless of who is governing.

    The number of people in full-time employment fell by 113,000.

    The number of part-time workers increased by 99,000, which will be Christmas jobs.

    The number of people neither employed nor looking for work – not included in unemployment figures – was up to 21.2% of the population, the highest since August 2007.

    This is just a typical manipulation of figures which all governments do. The reality is very different unfortunately.

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  2. 2
    peter

    fewer people claiming jobseekers allowance what a con i had 46 years in work now out of a job i had 6 months jobseekers allowance now told i can not claim any more as my wife as a job and she as to keep me how many more people like me

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  3. 3
    let me have my say

    If these figures are for sept/nov surely you will find the figures drop, because shops take on workers for christmas.

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  4. 4
    D.L.Barnett

    Dan is right anyone who believes anything put out by this government needs their head examined .They will manipulate any figures to suit their case .Remember there are lies damn lies and statistics put out by new Labour (sorry about the adaptation )

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  5. 5
    Peter

    Whether or not the apparent improvement is down to seasonal jobs, the fact remains that unemployment has not reached the levels predicted by most economic experts, regardless of their political stance, during this recession.

    Whilst I have every sympathy for those out of work after many years of employment, things could be a lot worse. It is only because we haven’t made the swingeing cuts that the Tories desire that we don’t have far more unemployed. Don’t forgtet Norman Lamont’s chilling words during the last (very much home-grown) recession ‘Unemployment is a price worth paying’.

    If the Tories get in again we will see huge cuts in public services and associated jobs, privatisation of many of these services, (with many of those jobs going abroad, never to return to the UK), a consequent massive increase in benefit costs, and the bankers (who caused this recession in the first place) will be let off the hook.

    We need a steady hand, not knee-jerk savage cuts to a wide range of essential services, and we need to tax the privately-owned bank profits hard until we’ve had all of our money back from these wealthy parasites.

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  6. 6
    d.L.Barnett

    Thank you Peter H for another party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour party .Bean/Clown and co have not got a clue .Who knows if the Tories will be any better ,god knows they cannot be worse .Just to remind you once more when you say the banks caused it ,well Bean/Clown set up the useless FSA to keep an eye on them so in my book Bean/Clown is to blame .How much did prudent Bean/Clown lose us selling off gold? .As I have said before Peter you have been indoctrinated from birth by labour if you were cut into rings each one would say “Vote Labour at any cost” just like a stick of rock .Your comments are your usual left wing drivel ,there are none so blind as those that will not see and you are in that category .

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  7. 7
    Peter

    D.L. Barnett,

    If you had done even minimal research you would have understood that the FSA in fact pre-dates the current government.

    Perhaps you recall that many of the changes in financial governance were a direct response to the endowment and pension mis-selling scandal that took place under the Tories. You might also recall a certain Margaret Thatcher encouraging people to leave SERPS in favour of ‘private pensions’ which were based upon hopelessly optimistic growth estimates.

    With respect to the FSA, you appear to have overlooked the simple fact that this is a global recession – the FSA could not have caused that, whereas US ‘global’ capitalism is very firmly in the dock.

    Only today we were treated to the nauseating spectacle of old Etonian Cameron wringing his hands and bemoaning the tabloid caricature of ‘Britain’s broken society’. Perhaps you could remind us who it was that said ‘There is no such thing as society’?

    As for the sale of gold, I think it would pale into insignificance when compared to the sale of our public utilities, our public housing stock, and many public sector jobs, a good proportion of which have gone abroad, never to return to the UK.

    Perhaps next time you could post a few facts, rather than resorting to inane name-calling as you have this time.

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  8. 8
    Stuart

    What Peter wants people is an exact re-run of all the policies that got us into this unholy mess to start with. Let’s have a look in detail what he says:-
    1. If the Tories get in – there will be savage spending cuts. He chooses not to accept that any party be it The Raving Loonies, Labour, Tory or Lib Dem etc, will have to make massive spending cuts. The only thing is, the Tories choose to mention some of their’s now – before the election, Labour are keeping their’s until after the election, in this regard, they are liars and charlatans, purveyors of snake oil and every other mean and dirty policy. Already we see massive Labour cuts in University funding for would be students. Already we see massive cuts in NHS spending etc.
    2. He talks of Tory jobs going abroad, now let’s have a look at all the car factory closures in the West Mids with our jobs going to China, India and all points foreign other than Bournville, Northfield, Selly Oak and other Birmingham districts. Lets have a look at the Corus steel factories closing down in the north of England and going to India. Let’s wait and see how many Cadbury’s jobs go when American Kraft close down a few places and off load a few of our jobs in order to cut their massive debts that they borrowed off an English owned Bank. I could go on but there is more of the other things he twists.
    3. He said that under the Tories, bankers will be let off the hook, well people and Peter, the Labourites, in the personal shape of Brown said that he was really going to trim the wings of recalcitrant banks who refused to alter their ways. So, what has he done, absolutely and utterly NOTHING WHATSOEVER. Obama has said that he will “fight” his banks. Brown remained mute, all along Cameron and Osborne have been telling us what the banks are in for if they get in. Cameron said that he will copy Obama. Brown looks on in total silence whilst the banks in UK with a couple of exceptions pay our billions in bonuses’s.
    4. Peter says that we don’t need “savage cuts”. Well in that regard he is at odds with one of his idols because much to Brown’s displeasure, it was “savage cuts” that according to Darling was the thing that was needed “after the election”.
    5. He say’s that he wants the money back from the wealthy “parasite banks”. I have news for you Peter, it was your mate Clown who gave all the money to these “wealthy parasite banks”. Perhaps you were not aware of this fact.
    6. He say’s the FSA pre-dates the current Government, he has swallowed the “spin” book because yes it does, what he does not mention is that it was Brown and Blair who set it up almost immediately they came into office and gave it the job of regulating the banks which they have patently failed to do.
    7. He has the nerve to mention private pensions, choosing not to mention that it was Brown personally in his first or second budget who utterly wrecked them by taxing pension investment fund interest. He mentions “public sector jobs” which have gone abroad under the Tories, very strange, which jobs and how many and when. He also fails to mention how the public sector has increased by leaps and bound under Labour draining our Local taxes and Government funding and creating a pension bill which is rapidly approaching bankruptcy.
    8. Again he has the gall to mention the “tabloid caricature” of our broken society. He and his other idol, that idiot Balls accuse Cameron of politicking when all sensible people look on aghast and dismayed at what is happening around them. Cameron, before this election has made his standpoint transparently clear. He will attempt to mend our “broken society” and again, all intelligent people know what is meant by that. If we recall, our dear departed ex Prime Minister, one Anthony Bliar said exactly the same thing after the Jeremy Bulger tradgedy all those years ago. Bliar was much more colourful and extreme than Cameron in what he intended doing about it. Peter, your mates have had 13 years, what have they done to make Bliar’s promises come true, absolutely nothing, zilch, zero. Our society today is more akin to that of a clockwork orange where extreme crime is just that, so “extreme” that the blood pails. We now have crimes that were unheard of and not imagined in our wildest dreams when Labour came to office. They have made our lives what they are.
    Over 50,000 Britons went to live in Australia last year and more to Canada, New Zealand and many other sane, peaceful countries – that alone speaks more than words.

    I try to be as gentle as I can be Peter in the face of blind, unbridled left wing rhetoric where facts are twisted to suit your mood at the time. They cut no ice with intelligent people and are just a rehash of what we have had before from you.

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