Unemployment Rate At 8%

The ONS Labour Market Survey says that for December 2009 to February 2010 there were 2.5 million people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 8%. The employment rate was given as 72.1% or 28.82 million employed people. There were also 8.16 million economically inactive people equalling 21.5%. Pay including bonuses rose by 2.3% and pay excluding bonuses rose by 1.7%. Yorkshire and Humberside had the highest unemployment rate at 9.5%, the North East and the West Midlands both had 9.5%. The South East, South West and N. Ireland had the lowest with 6.4%. The figures compare with the 64.8% employment rate for July-September 2009 and the 9.6% unemployment rate for February 2010 that are the averages in the EU.

The 72.1% employment rate is the lowest it has been since October 1996. as the number of people in employment fell by 89,000 (F/T 59,000 and P/T 30,000). It was 74.9% for men and 69% for women. The number of unemployed increased by 43,000. The number unemployed for over 6 months fell by 46,000 to 1.22 million. The number of people unemployed for over 12 months increased by 89,000 to reach 726,000 the highest since July 1997. The 2.5 million unemployed people included 1.53 million unemployed men, up 23,000, and 970,000 unemployed women, up 20,000 since three months ending in November. The number of employed people was made up of 13.47 million men and 7.69 million women. Part-time workers totalled 7.67 million of which 1.88 million were men and 5.79 million people were women. The public sector employed 6.1 million people and the private sector 22.76 million people in December 2009.

There were 1.54 million people claiming Job Seeker's Allowance between February and March 2010. The count has fallen 4 out of the last 5 months. The inactivity rate is the highest it has been since October 2004. The number of inactive people was 110,000 which includes 71,000 students. Vacancies increased by 9,000 to 475,000. There were 30.75 million workforce jobs in December 2009. There were 30.75 million workforce jobs, down 119,000 over the quarter to December 2009. The largest decrease was in distribution, hotels and restaurants with 62,000 job losses. Most of the workforce jobs were in London and the South East, the least jobs in England were in the North East, in Wales and N.Ireland.

The annual growth rate for total earnings was 2.3% driven mainly by the financial sector's higher bonuses and a change in timing of payment of bonuses from January last year to February this year. Annual regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 1.7% in February up from 1.5% in the three months to January 2010. Average total pay was £443/week and average regular pay £428/week. In the private sector average total pay was £451/week and average regular pay £418/week. In the public sector average total pay was £462/week and average regular pay was £459/week. There were a total of 912.8 million hours worked in the quarter to February 2010. Average weekly hours were 31.7 hours.

Redundancies went down by 20,000 to 6.5/1000 employees. Labour disputes lost 3,000 working days in February 2010 and in the 12 months to February 440,000 working days were lost from 100 stoppages.

The 18-24 year old bracket increased by 14.1% over the year overall and by 39.9% for 6-12 months and 56.9% for over 12 months while up to 6 months fell by 4.8% over the year. Agriculture, forestry and fishing jobs decreased by 3.8% on the quarter and 3% on the year to February.