District unemployment unchanged (From Witney Gazette)

District unemployment unchanged

3:22pm Monday 20th March 2006 in Witney

THE number of people in Oxfordshire claiming unemployment benefit rose to the worst level for three years, but West Oxfordshire was unchanged, with the rate of only 0.7 per cent.

An extra 435 people signed on for Jobseekers Allowance the biggest monthly increase in 12 years bringing the county's claimant count to 4,355 in February, with 1.1 per cent of the workforce claiming benefit, compared with 0.9 per cent in December.

The Government is being urged to significantly increase investment in job-creation programmes after national figures also jumped to the worst level since 2003.

Ministers defended their employment record, even though the national claimant count jumped by 14,600 last month, to 919,700, the biggest monthly rise since the end of 1992.

The worst affected areas in Oxfordshire are Oxford and Banbury, with rates of 1.6 per cent and 1.3 per cent.

South Oxfordshire's rate rose from 0.8 to 0.9 per cent, and the Vale of White Horse from 0.7 to 0.8 per cent.

Most of Oxfordshire's new claimants were men, with Oxford's male claimant rate up to 2.4 per cent, and Banbury's 1.7 per cent. Nationally, women bore the brunt of job cuts.

The total number of people out of work in the UK rose by 37,000 in the three months to January, to 1.53m, caused entirely by an increase in the number of jobless women, according to the Office for National Statistics.