North-East bucks trend with fall in jobless (From The Northern Echo)

North-East bucks trend with fall in jobless

8:00am Thursday 16th February 2012 in News By Stuart Arnold

OPINION was split last night on the latest unemployment figures after they showed a fall in the number of people of out of work in the North.

Nationally, the unemployment rate reached a 16-year-high, rising by 48,000 in the three months to December, a rate of 8.4 per cent.

In the North-East, the number of unemployed fell by 4,000 to 143,000, a rate of 11.2 per cent, still the highest in the country.

In Yorkshire and Humberside, it fell by 10,000 to 264,000, a rate of 9.9 per cent.

North East Chamber of Commerce chief executive James Ramsbotham cautiously welcomed the figures, adding that it was a small demonstration that the North-East was moving in the right direction.

He said: “The performance of our regional manufacturers and exporters continues to outstrip the rest of the country and we remain the only region with a positive balance of overseas trade.

“These are all signs that the private sector is slowly recovering from the recession and the impact of the Government’s austerity measures, which saw many companies lose public sector contracts.”

Welform Reform Minister Lord Freud said the figures showed “encouraging signs of stability” despite the challenging economic climate.

Kevin Rowan, secretary of the Northern TUC, said the drop in unemployment in the region was “the lull before the storm”. He said it was hard to see where a sustained recovery was coming from until the Government developed a credible plan for job creation and growth.

Analysis by the TUC showed that there were, on average, 10.1 jobseekers for each vacancy in the North-East.

The highest jobseeker to vacancy ratio was in Redcar and east Cleveland, at 21.7 to 1.

Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman said her constituency had seen an “eyewatering”

43 per cent increase in female unemployment over the past 12 months and said the region’s young people were being “consigned to the scrapheap”.

Katie Schmuecker, from the IPPR North think tank, suggested the fall in unemployment in the region may be partly because of retailers recruiting Christmas staff.

Nationally, youth unemployment rose by 22,000 to 1.04 million, while the number of women out of work increased to its highest level for 23 years – 1,123,000.

The number of people claiming jobseekers’ allowance also increased for the 11th month in succession to 1.6 million.