Further decrease in unemployment level welcomed | Latest Newry News, Newry Sport and Newry Business for Newry City

Further decrease in unemployment level welcomed

Figures released for the period May – July 2016, show that the Northern Ireland Labour Force Survey unemployment rate was 5.6% – a decrease of 0.2 percentage points over the quarter and 0.7 percentage points over the year.

Job CentreMore recent figures for August 2016 show that the number of claimants in receipt of unemployment related benefits stood at 35,100, a decrease of 800 over the month.

This shows a fall of 6,700 in the unemployment claimant figures over the last 12 months.

The employment rate (69.4%) increased over the year to May – July 2016 by 1.7 percentage points, while the economic inactivity rate decreased over the year to 26.4% from 28.1%.

Businesses reported (in the Quarterly Employment Survey) that the number of employee jobs increased over the quarter to June 2016 (0.1% or 860 jobs) and over the year (1.2% or 8,770 jobs) to 733,490.

Commenting on the figures, Economy Minister Simon Hamilton said, “I am greatly encouraged by the continuing signs of improvement in economic conditions especially across our labour market.

Article continues below:

September 2016“Creating more and better jobs is a key priority for me. The increase in employee jobs and the increase in the employment rate is hugely encouraging and a further sign that our economy is heading in the right direction.

“It is very welcome to see another decrease in the number of people on the unemployment register. The count now stands at 35,100 people – a decrease of 16% over the year. The unemployment rate also continues to head in the right direction, at 5.6%, the lowest it has been since the end of 2009, and comparing very favourably to the European Union average of 8.6%,” he added.

The economic output measures showed an increase over the quarter and year in both the services and production sectors. The Index of Services showed an increase of 1.7% over the quarter and 4.0% over the year, while the Index of Production reported increases of 0.6% over the quarter and 0.1% over the year.

Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=57497

Posted by on Sep 14 2016. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Leave a Reply







Find us on Facebook

Log in | Designed by Gabfire themes