Umbrella company contractors might be interested to learn about the latest unemployment statistics from the ONS.
Chris Grayling, the employment minister, said private sector businesses are playing a key role in job creation and the government will continue to support their development and growth as the economy improves.
Grayling made his comments after ONS data showed that unemployment dropped by 9,000 in the 3rd quarter of the year. There are now 2.45 million unemployed people in the UK. However, 1.18 million people have now been unemployed for up to 6 months; an increase of 21,000. Out of these, 817,000 have been without a job for more than 12 months.
40,000 unemployed men found jobs during Q3, but 31,000 additional females became jobless. Joblessness among women, at 1.02 million, is now at the highest level since 1988.
There are now 1.15 million part-time employees in the UK, a rise of 67,000 on June’s figure, but at the same time 62,000 people lost full-time jobs.
Experts claim that the improvement is misleading as so many people are forced into part-time and self-employment because there is a lack of full-time jobs. This is likely to continue as public sector workers are made redundant and the spending cuts begin to bite.
The TUC’s General Secretary, Brendan Barber, said that a drop in the rate of unemployment was welcome but we should not take the figures as a sign of a job market recovery. There has been a notable rise in people taking involuntary part-time jobs and the unemployed outnumber vacancies by five to one.
Between March and June, employment in the private sector increased by 308,000 to 23.11 million but the public sector workforce decreased by 22,000 to 6.05 million.
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Image: Up & Down @ Seattle Public Library by papalars
