UK Economy Tracker: Unemployment

 

The number of people out of work fell by 99,000 to 2.39 million in the three months to October, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The unemployment rate of the economically active population fell to 7.4%, the lowest rate since the February-to-April period in 2009.

The number of people in work is 30.09 million.

The claimant count – the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance – fell by 36,700 to 1.27 million in October.

Understanding unemployment:

Unemployment is referred to as a lagging indicator, because businesses will often delay laying people off as long as they can in difficult times.

A few months after the start of the recession in 2008, unemployment started to rise sharply. When the global financial crisis hit, the unemployment rate was a little over 5% or 1.6 million.

Towards the end of 2009, with the UK coming out of its severest recession since the 1950s, it was almost a million higher at 2.5 million, or 8%.

Unemployment peaked at almost 2.7 million at the end of 2011, its highest level for 17 years.

Source; BBC