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Unemployment figures continue to defy the odds, according to regional business leaders

Business leaders in Coventry and Warwickshire say the rate of unemployment has ‘defied all the odds’ on the back of the latest official figures showing another fall.

The current figures from the Office for National Statistics show that unemployment across the country dropped from 4.5 per cent to 4.1 per cent between September and November, leaving it just 0.1 per cent higher than at the start of the pandemic. Job vacancies also reached a new high in the final quarter of the year.

Sean Rose, head of policy at the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “It is great news to see unemployment continuing to fall and it is an area of the economy that has defied all the odds since the start of the pandemic.

“One of the major concerns at the start of the first lockdown was that Covid-19 and the restrictions it was bringing with it was going to have a massive impact on unemployment and that we’d see massive job losses.

“Those same fears were there as schemes such as furlough started to come to an end but, again, the labour market has held up well.

“The more pressing issue for businesses we speak to is being able to find the right people with the right skills to come in and help them grow as the economy continues to recover.

“It’s vitally important that companies across Coventry and Warwickshire can start to grow again, two years on from the start of the pandemic, and being able to bring in the right people is crucial to that.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .