Now we’ve got chance to catch our breath here’s a quick summary of those earlier UK unemployment figures which were totally overshadowed by the MPC Minutes bomb shell…
- UK unemployment fell in the three months to December, while the number in work also jumped
- The jobless total fell by 14,000 between October and December to 2.5 million, while the number in work rose by 154,000 to 29.7 million
- 580,000 more people are employed than a year ago
- The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in January fell by 12,500 to 1.54 million
- Overall there were 29.73 million people in the UK in employment, of which 73% were working full-time and 27% were working part-time
- In the three months to December, the unemployment rate fell to 7.8% – down from 7.9% in the previous quarter.
All in all it’s showing an improvement, superfically at least but there’s more to this than meets the eye methinks.
The figures also showed that between October- December 2012, full-time employment was 378,000 lower than in the April-June quarter in 2008, Q1 of the recession. But part-time employment was 572,000 higher compared with the same period.
