Unemployment falls again, but pay rises stay well below the rise in inflation

Nationally the unemployment figures released on Wednesday (September 10) were again good.  Claimants for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) were down 32,600 between July and August.

This leaves 1,400,000 people aged 218 and over claiming the benefit – the lowest level since February 2009.

On the broader measure of those without jobs, unemployment fell by 24,000 in the quarter May-July 2013. This was down 105,000 over the previous year – dropping the national rate to 7.7 per cent.

Year on year, figures for those claiming JSA in the Devizes constituency during August are well down on the previous year – a total fall across the age groups of 11.5 per cent.

But month on month the claimant figures for the constituency seem to be stuck. Claimants in both the 18-24 age group and the 50-and-over age group totalled exactly the same number during August as during July.

Most worryingly, the figure for those who have been claiming for more than twelve months – the ‘long term unemployed’ – was exactly the same in July and August 2013 and in August 2012.

Meanwhile the increase in regular pay (that’s not counting bonuses) was still at one per cent during the quarter May-July compared to the same period last year. That is well below the rate of inflation – marking another fall in many people’s living standards.

Drilling down into that one per cent rise, the statisticians put the increase in those employed in the private sector at 1.2 per cent against those employed in the public sector at 0.7 per cent.