UNEMPLOYMENT has fallen in Liverpool city region for the tenth month in a row, figures released today show.

The Office for National Statistics said the total number of jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) claimants in the six boroughs in December stood at 51,774 – down 1.6% on November.

The claimant count fell in all six local authority areas, with the Liverpool total falling from 20,419 to 20,130.

Today’s national figures showed a record number of people are in work after another fall in unemployment and a further dip in the numbers claiming JSA.

Almost 30m adults were in a job in the quarter to last November, up by more than half a million on the previous year.

The figure, giving an employment rate of 71%, is the highest since records began in 1971.
Unemployment fell by 37,000 in the latest quarter to just under 2.5m, the lowest since spring 2011.

It was the 10th consecutive fall and was coupled with another cut in the number of people claiming JSA , which was down by 12,100 last month to 1.56m, the lowest since June 2011.

The number of people classed as economically inactive, including those looking after a relative or who have given up looking for a job, fell by 13,000 to just over 9m.

Part-time employment fell by 23,000, but this was offset by a 113,000 increase in the numbers employed full-time in the three months to November.

But a report released today from the TUC suggested the recent increase in the number of people in work has been driven by a surge in self-employment, which could be masking the true level of unemployment.

The TUC said there had been a 9% rise in self-employed people since the start of the recession in 2008, compared with a 1% fall in the total number of employees. 

The biggest increases in self-employment were in administrative and secretarial work, sales and customer services and occupations such as hairdressing and cleaning, according to the study.