Member Article

Jobseeker claimants decrease in Greater Manchester

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) dropped significantly in Greater Manchester in April 2013, with over 1,500 fewer claimants across the county.

This drop represents a 1.8% decline, while JSA claimant numbers decreased by 2.6% across the whole of the North West.

When examining the working age population, 4.8% of people in Greater Manchester were claiming JSA in April, although this is above the 4.2% of people claiming across the North West.

Youth unemployment also decreased on a monthly basis in April, falling by around 1,000 people to 22,300.

Despite these positive figures, there was a rise in long-term (6 months and over) claimants for Greater Manchester by 600 people, up 1.6% between March and April.

Year-on-year, the number of long-term claimants was relatively the same as April 2012, although there was a slight increase of 0.3%.

For the North West, there was a significant 2.1% fall in the number of long-term JSA claimants, while this figure was down by 3.2% across the whole of Great Britain.

Baron Frankal, director of economic strategy at New Economy, commented: “All indicators, not least the latest youth employment warnings from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the stubborn persistence of long-term unemployment, point to extremely challenging circumstances over the next period.”

“Yet whilst it is too soon to say any phrase with the word “green” or “shoots” in it, much of the recent underlying data is beginning to give some credence to the possibility that we may have turned a corner.

“Employment has held up remarkably well over the last five years, and so there is some expectation that it will pick up correspondingly slowly in any recovery. However, optimism and confidence do eventually translate into jobs.”

“There is a good deal going on in the Greater Manchester economy to help build that confidence, and much more capitalising to be done on areas that have grown, such as the digital sector, and financial and professional services, which continues to be our biggest industry and employer, and is still forecast to create more jobs than any other area by some way.

“If we are to fire on all cylinders in areas like commercialising the excellence of our scientific research, there would be even more reasons to be cheerful.”

Data was released by Manchester think tank, New Economy on Wednesday.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .