Liverpool city region’s jobseekers figures in 18-year record jump

Mar 19 2009 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool city region’s jobseekers’ figures in 18-year record jump

THE stark impact of the world economic crisis on families in the Liverpool city region was exposed with the release of the latest unemployment statistics yesterday.

The figures showed the largest monthly increase in jobseekers for 18 years, sending the number of claimants above the 50,000 mark.

Statistics showed an extra 3,752 people signed up for Jobseeker’s Allowance last month – taking the city region’s total to 52,524, its highest level since January, 2000.

The monthly increase for the region’s six authorities – Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Halton, Knowsley and St Helens – is the largest since July, 1991, and follows a recent trend of sharp increases. Nearly 12,700 people were added to the Jobseeker’s Allowance claimant count in the last four months as unemployment soared. The claimant count has now increased for eight consecutive months across the city region, rising a massive 47% since July.

Economist Peter Stoney, an honorary senior fellow at Liverpool University Management School and director of the Liverpool Research Group in Macroeconomics, expects the claimant count to continue to rise in the coming months.

He said: “The claimant count will reach 60,000 on Merseyside and it will stay around that level for up to a couple of years. The shake-out is so severe it will take a while for employers to get back to where we were.”

But chief executive of Liverpool Chamber of Commerce Jack Stopforth did not think there was any need to panic.

He said: “It’s not very surprising that the figures have gone up. It doesn’t suggest a local weakness in the local economy but it does show that the organisations which were stretched at the start of the credit crunch have faced difficulties.

“In our last survey of Chamber members, they told us that, while they were reassessing their recruitment policies, relatively few were looking at letting staff go.”

The data released yesterday provided a snapshot of the situation on February 12. But there are thousands of job losses which have not yet filtered through to the official figures.

These include previously announced plans by Speke-based home shopping retailer Shop Direct and meat packaging factory Tulip, in Birkenhead, to cut 900 and 300 jobs respectively.

The region could also be affected by major UK-wide job cuts at insurance giant RSA, and telecoms firms Vodafone and TalkTalk.