Unemployment claimant count falls

Date published: 15 December 2010


The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in Rochdale has fallen again. 

Last month 6,544 claimed the benefit compared with 6,714 the month before.

Dr Brian Sloan, Head of Business and Economic Policy at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “Employment in Greater Manchester appears to be bucking the national trend. Nationally the number of unemployed and job seeker’s allowance claimants is up and the number of people in employment has gone down, but in Greater Manchester we are not seeing this.

“The number of job seeker’s allowance claimants has fallen slightly – as we anticipated given the responses to our Quarterly Economic Survey. Manufacturing is making a positive contribution to jobs growth in the region, but this is somewhat subdued.

“Smaller businesses in the service sector have been creating jobs, though larger firms have been reducing headcount so this is the main reason the decrease in the claimant count has been so small, and of course the difficulties for the region’s construction sector roll on with a number of firms ceasing to trade in recent months.

“We believe there is more positive news to come in the New Year, though this will follow an initial increase in claimants during January as seasonal jobs come to an end.”

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