North West employment rises

Unemployment has dropped below 7 per cent for the first time since the recession and employment has seen the biggest annual jump in a generation, figures published by the Office for National Statistics today show.

Unemployment fell by 77,000 in the last three months, taking the unemployment rate to 6.9 per cent for the first time since 2009.

In the largest annual rise in nearly 25 years, the number of people of people in a job rose by 691,000 bringing the record number of people in work to 30.39 million.

Wages also rose on the year by 1.7 per cent, against yesterday's announcement that March’s inflation had dropped to 1.6 per cent, and job vacancies rose again, up 108,000 over the past year bringing the number of vacancies in the UK economy to 611,000.

The number of people in work has increased by 1.5 million since 2010 - over a million of these jobs are full-time – and the employment rate is now 72.6 per cent, showing the Government’s long-term economic plan to back enterprise and businesses so they can create jobs is working.

The proportion of women in work also hit a new record of 67.6 per cent - the highest since records began.

Long-term unemployment is down 93,000 on the year, which is the largest annual fall since 1998. The number of unemployed young people also fell, by 38,000 over the last three months, and has been falling now for the last seven months.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 30,400 last month and is down 386,100 on the year. The number of young people claiming JSA has been falling for the last 22 months.