Minister welcomes jobless fall but says work continues

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Unemployment may creep up again next month, but Social Security Minister Francis Le Gresley says his department will keep up the pressure to get people back to work.

Figures released this week showed that unemployment dropped slightly in December with 1,750 people out of work – the lowest figure in more than a year. Senator Le Gresley has welcomed the figures, but added that the work to tackle unemployment was still a major focus for the Council of Ministers.

He said: “The figure is the best that we have had for 14 months, but we cannot get too excited because the figures always show a rise in January and February as some seasonal jobs come to an end, so we would expect the numbers to go up.

“We are working with all groups, but we have targeted the very young and long term unemployed, particularly in our Back to Work schemes, such as the Job Fest leading up to Christmas. At the end of 2009 we had 53 of 109 people on that scheme still in jobs that we had found as a result of the Jobs Fest, and those were potentially brand new jobs.”

Yesterday’s figures out today showed that unemployment figures were at their lowest since October 2012. The 1,750 people out of work at the end of December was 60 lower than the previous month. And there was more encouraging news for long-term unemployment, with the number of people out of work for 12 months or more at its lowest for more than a year. There were 310 people who had been out of work for more than 12 months, or 18% of the total unemployed.

The figures also recorded that there were 270 teenagers between 16 and 19 who were out of work at the end of the year, and 50 people under the age of 25 who had been out of work for more than 12 months.