Pre-Budget Blues On Jobless Figures

As fears grow over the UK Budget announcement today, and how it might impact on the Northern Ireland block grant of about £18bn and the £10bn that is directly controlled by the NI Executive, new figures have highlighted growing unemployment.

They show a continued rise in Northern Ireland's unemployment figures and a fall in production and service sector output.

The Northern Ireland seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, as measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), was estimated at 5.7% for the period December 2008 to February 2009.

This represented a marked increase from the rate of 4.2%, which was recorded in both the previous quarter and in the same period one year ago.

The quarterly increase of 1.5 percentage points in the Northern Ireland unemployment rate was the largest increase since the LFS quarterly series began fourteen years ago.

However, the Northern Ireland unemployment rate remained below the UK average rate (6.7%) and was fourth lowest of the UK regions.

It was also lower than the European Union (7.6%) and Republic of Ireland (8.8%) rates for January 2009.

The more recent claimant count measure of unemployment stood at 43,900 in March 2009, with the number of claimants having increased by 1,900 over the month.

Although the latest increase was considerable, it represented the lowest monthly increase in any of the last five months and compared with an increase of 2,900 in the previous monthly period.

Over the year to March 2009, the number of unemployed claimants in Northern Ireland has increased by 20,200 (85.2%), which is similar to the equivalent UK increase (84.9%). The majority of the annual increase (13,900) in Northern Ireland has occurred in the last six months.

Seasonally adjusted estimates for the period December 2008 to February 2009 also showed that there were 758,000 people in employment in Northern Ireland. This represented an estimated fall of 3.2% in employment levels over the quarter and a decrease of 3.8% over the year.

The seasonally adjusted number of working age persons that were economically inactive increased by an estimated 14,000 over the quarter and the corresponding working age economic inactivity rate increased to 28.5% (in December - February 2009). The Northern Ireland inactivity rate remained considerably higher than the UK average rate (20.7%) and was the highest of the UK regions.

Commenting on the figures, NI Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster said: "The latest labour market results showed a marked increase in the unemployment rate over the most recent quarter.

"The number of unemployment benefit claimants also increased in March, reflecting the continuing impact of a weak global economy. However, our unemployment rate remained below that of the UK and despite the recent increase, it was still fourth lowest of the UK regions."

She also said that - with Executive colleagues - her department is determined to do everything to limit the impact of the economic downturn.

"Invest NI offer a range of programmes to check businesses' strengths and weaknesses to better position them for future growth.

"I would encourage companies to avail of these services to help deliver a competitive advantage in these difficult times," she concluded.

See: UK Unemployment Reaches 2.1m

(BMcC/JM)