Unemployment Figures for June 2012

Just a brief update on this month’s unemployment figures.  The Worcestershire figures seem more or less in line with the national headline of a slight fall (though the Worcestershire figures are Job Seeker’s Allowance claimants).  There is also a slight fall in youth unemployment in the county but long-term unemployment continues to rise.  You can find the details in the Worcestershire County Economic Summary.  The headlines about the County are on page 4, a graph of long-term unemployment on page 18 and commentary on page 27 as part of a more general section beginning on page 24 that include information about youth unemployment beginning on page 25.

A summary of the national picture can be found here and an interesting analysis by the BBC’s Home Editor of the issues to do with the figures for the number of people actually in employment and the number of full- and part-time workers.  This ties up quite closely with the observations of the deputy agent of the Bank of England in my post a couple of weeks ago on the more general economic situation.  It appears we may be finding there are more people going self-employed, though it’s not clear how much work they may be finding.