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Hopes of an Autumn bounce in the economy were given a boost today with better than expected jobless figures.
The official unemployment total rose 88,000 to 2.47 million in the three months to August, while the number of young people out of work actually dipped slightly to 946,000.
Analysis of today's figures suggests that unemployment may have stopped rising in August when the national total fell by 1,000 from its 14-year high, the first monthly drop since March
last year.
The figures come a week before the first estimate of economic growth in the third quarter,
which is expected to show that GDP increased after five consecutive quarters of recession.
The jobless figures confounded City forecasters, who had been expecting a rise of about 150,000.
Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said the jobless total may peak at a lower level than in previous recessions.
Appearing before MPs on the Work and Pension select committee she said: “It may be that the traditional lag... between what happens to growth and what happens to unemployment may be narrowing.
“For a series of reasons it does look as if the economy is behaving in a different way compared
to the early Nineties.”
But economists warned against reading too much into what may prove a “rogue” set of figures and said mass lay-offs in the public sector have not yet started.
Nevertheless, there were many positive signs in today's statistics. Unemployment in London rose by just 6,000 to 354,000 in the quarter, while in
the South East it fell by 2,000.
The number of vacancies, which has fallen in every period since April last year, held firm at
434,000. Redundancies in the three months to August were down 68,000 on the previous period's high to 233,000.
Average earnings including bonuses increased at a rate of 1.6 per cent in the period, down 0.2
per cent on the previous month.
Excluding bonuses, the growth rate was 1.9 per cent, the lowest since records began in 2001.
Investec chief economist Philip Shaw said the numbers were “more encouraging than we had hoped”.
But Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Steve Webb said: “It is only a matter of time before a million young people will be looking for work.”
A City job fair in Canary Wharf was swamped by more than 5,000 young, unemployed Londoners — forcing Tower Hamlets council to turn people away.
Reader views (4)
Is that some cooking I smell on Labour's pre-election stove. Smells like books. Something intended to pique the palate of aficionados and the desperate; something to remind the waverers that are tempted to try another chef's dishes, what the now stale old mess of their old cook once tasted of when it was exhilaratingly fresh, a memory rather than reality.
Or another borrowed adage...
Robbing Peter to pay Paul inevitably leaves an imbalance that eventually brings everything crashing down. Labour are no doubt hoping the whole shebang doesn't start breaking down before the election, once the reality of false 'improvements' starts rearing its ugly head and begins to throw everything else out of skelter.
Homeostasis is Nature's response to imbalance. If politicians were to take that and its implications to heart things might just start improving for everyone - but that would require selfless rather than selfish leaders; it would require actual leaders rather than entrenched political controllers.
- Rogan, Irving, 15/10/2009 02:56
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David, the figure rose for the quarter but the figure actually fell in August - so the assumption is that unemployment may have tooped out.
- Richard, London, 14/10/2009 17:07
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Strange 'fall' in unemployment when new university places are oversubscribed by 30%. What happened to all this summer's jobless graduates? Funny that just when the spike in job seekers jumps, during summer graduation and school leaving, suddenly the unemployment figures go 'down'. Pull the other one.
- Ruth, Godalming, 14/10/2009 16:40
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So that is 'fall' in the sense of 'smaller than expected rise'? Orwell would be proud.
- David, london, 14/10/2009 14:35
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