MORE than 1,000 extra people were out of work in Merseyside last month.

Official unemployment figures showed another 1,134 people began claiming jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) in the Liverpool city region last month – but the rise continued last month’s much-slower increase.

A senior city economist last night declared “the worst is behind us” after unemployment, retail and manufacturing data released yesterday showed the pace of the downturn to be slowing.

Economist Peter Stoney, an honorary senior fellow at Liverpool University’s management school and director of the Liverpool Research Group in Macroeconomics, believes we can begin to be “reasonably positive” about the economy.

He said: “There have been quite a few signs that globally the downturn is easing off.

“The stock market has been increasing, the retail sales are not too bad and while the housing market seems to have a bit further to go down, it is slowing. There are quite a few signs we are bottoming out – but we are always holding our breath.

“There may be some lags in the system between the financial stabilisation and the real economic recovery, and there is still a lot of uncertainty about the car industry, which could have a big effect locally.

“But overall, the trend is one of bottoming-out.

“We shall see a steady climb out of the pit from now on. There will still be pain around but the worst is behind us.”

Four monthly rises in the claimant count across Merseyside, of 6%-8% from December last year, were replaced by increases of 3.1% and 2% in April and May this year.

There are now 55,267 people claiming JSA across Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens, Halton and Wirral.