Yesterday’s most recent employment figures, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show unemployment rates continue to move in the right direction, both at a local and national level.
This time five years ago the number of people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA) in Bromley and Chislehurst stood at 1,648. Today it is just 684, ultimately meaning that 964 more people have the security of a job than they did in January 2011. All in all, the number of people claiming JSA in Bromley and Chislehurst constitutes just 1.5% of the economically active population, giving our constituency a ranking of 193rd out of 650 UK constituencies for employment.
Nationally, the picture is also bright:
A record number of people are in work and unemployment and youth unemployment is at a near 10-year low
Unemployment has fallen by 820,000 since 2010;
Over 1 million more women are in work since 2010, and the number of unemployed women is down by 57,000 over the year;
The proportion of under-25s who are unemployed and not full-time students is the lowest on record – at 5.6%;
The number of long-term unemployed people has fallen by almost a quarter in the last year to 488,000;
Vacancies were at 776,000 in the three months to January, up 45,000 on the year and 309,000 since 2010;
And crucially, total pay rose 1.9% over the last year.
While there is of course more work to do, this all stands as incredibly encouraging news, and demonstrates that our economic security continues to improve. The full list of statistics can be found through the following link:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Labour+Market