THE unemployment statistics for the UK were unveiled to a chorus of groans yesterday, as it emerged the jobless figures were up once more for the eighth month.

But this is one government league where the Liverpool city region can currently be seen to be bucking the trend, as its increase in jobseekers is significantly slower than the rest of the UK.

There were less than 700 additional people claiming unemployment benefits in September across six of the local authorities. The sole exception was in St Helens.

The longer-term trend also shows that the city region’s claimant count is growing more slowly than the rest of the country.

Of course, the region is still in a poor position nationally, and this slower rate of growth, however laudable, should not be allowed to obscure the overall low rating it unfortunately boasts.

Liverpool is bottom of the North West list with 5.6%,while Knowsley has a claimant rate of 4.7%. The UK rate is just 2.5%, and the North West rate is 3.0%.

But, that accepted, this is still a small bright spot for the region and one which deserves recognition – particularly on a day when Jaguar Land Rover, which has a major plant at Halewood, announced it was looking to shed 200 jobs across the UK.

There is much work being done to improve joblessness in the Merseyside area – although there is still a long way to go before too many celebrations are held – and this is, as the Mersey Partnership says, an encouraging sign.

What remains to be seen is whether the grim state of the economy – forecast to get much worse before it gets any better – is about to undermine all the region’s determined efforts.