UK unemployment falls amid Olympics boost
The poor old olympics it will be to blame or praise in relation to anything and everything over the next few weeks I suspect. Having been seen to have had a negative impact on businesses elsewhere in this week’s offering from Hinterland, it is cited in this story as the cause of an upturn in jobs. This well crafted story reveals however that the situation is more complex than it might superficially seems. It tells us:
The number of people without jobs in the three months to June fell by 46,000 to 2.56m, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The jobless rate dipped to 8.0pc, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous quarter and the lowest level since July 2011.
Employers created 130,000 full-time jobs over the period, to reach 21.41m, with London accounting for the biggest gains in hiring – a sign that the London 2012 Olympics boosted hiring in the capital.
However, there are fears that the Games jobs will be a “one-off” boost to the UK labour market, with a sustained recovery looking more elusive.
The number of people in part-time jobs because they could not find full-time work increased by 16,000 to a record high of 1.42m in the three months to June, the figures showed.
Other signs of “underemployment” came with statistics showing the number of people trapped in long-term unemployment – for a year or more – rose by 1,000 to 882,000 over the quarter. Those out of work for two years or more fell by 4,000 to 422,000 in the three months to June
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