THE rate of unemployment in the UK has shown a surprise fall in recent months, according to official data published last week.

Using the International Labour Organisation’s measure, around 7.8% of the nation’s workforce was out of a job at the end of September, down slightly from 7.9% at the end of June.

This time last year the doomsayers were predicting unemployment would hit the 3m mark before things started to get better. Instead, it looks unlikely that unemployment will even pass 2.5m. The figure is even better in this region, with the number of jobseekers falling in the Liverpool city region. So what is the cause of this surprisingly good news?

The official explanation is a strong rise in part-time jobs. There are 30,000 more part-time jobs than in the previous quarter.

While this is not as good as a strong rise in full-time jobs, it is at least better than nothing.

The much better-than- expected UK figures contrast with significantly worse employment markets in other industrial countries, including France, Germany and the US.

Economists would normally expect an improvement in unemployment to lag behind improvements in economic output. Surely, then, the employment data foreshadows the fact that our economy is now firmly out of recession, though we must wait until January to see this in  the GDP figures.

I remember putting the point to an eminent local economist a year ago that the world’s slide into recession was faster than in previous downturns. I argued there was something about the dynamics at play during this recession that acted as a catalyst for decline – and that catalyst was probably the way the banks so very quickly pulled the purse strings tightly shut to consumers and businesses alike.

Furthermore, when things picked up, they would do so equally rapidly due to the same catalytic effects working in reverse.

My economist friend disagreed, but I wonder now if I was right. There is a chance that the ongoing stock market recovery, rising house prices in some parts of the country, and now the latest pleasant surprise of falling unemployment means that, as bad as it was, 2009 will turn out to be nothing like as dreadful as once feared.

DOES it matter that Alliance Fund Managers is not getting the job of managing the Northwest Development Agency’s next round of equity investment funding for the region’s small and medium-sized businesses?

Of course it matters to the people losing their jobs, but what about the rest of us?

While the financial performance of the funds managed by AFM hasn’t always been great, one thing they did well was to create local networks of business advisors, mentors and other support designed to help local firms grow.

As yet, the NWDA has not announced who will look after the new fund in the longer-term, but it would be nice if the eventually-selected manager was equally capable of calling on local resources and know-how to support our firms.

A distinction must be made between the financial performance of the funds and their economic impact on the region. So it is a surprise that there has been no formal study or appraisal of the economic impact regional venture funds.