North-east unemployment continues to fall as the region’s economy picks up and the job market in the Highlands is “buoyant”, Jobcentre staff in Aberdeen and Inverness said yesterday.
They were speaking after new figures emerged for how many people are in and out of work across the UK.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s jobless rate is now 4% – down by 0.3% on a year ago – and the lowest since 1975, while the unemployment rate in Scotland has dropped to a record low of 3.5%.
Aberdeen Jobcentre work coach team leader Ruth Rothnie said the latest monthly total for job-seeking benefit claimants in the Granite City was down by 8% on a year ago at 4,022, while the number of 18 to 24-year-old claimants fell by 9% to 583.
Aberdeenshire’s overall total was down by 7%, at 2,885, with the 18 to 24-year-old group lower by 11% at 468. Ms Rothnie said: “The position has been an improving one over several months and again the stats reveal a positive picture in both Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.”
Jobcentre staff in Aberdeen are highlighting new opportunities in the local hospitality and retail sectors through a three-week campaign of events involving Jury’s Inn, the Restaurant Group, Marks and Spencer, Hilton Garden Inn and Pret a Manger.
They are also supporting a recruitment campaign for First Bus, which needs more drivers.
Inverness Jobcentre work coach manager Faye Armitstead said the prospect of another bumper tourism season was driving the “buoyant” job market in the north, while housebuilding projects in and around Inverness were helping to create new opportunities in construction.
A total of 1.36 million people were out of work around the UK during the three months to December 31 2018, which was 14,000 fewer than in the previous quarter and lower by 100,000 than a year earlier.
UK employment increased by 167,000 over the three months to December to 32.6m, the highest since records began in 1971. There were 96,000 people in Scotland who were unemployed – a fall of 10,000 on the previous quarter, with the year-on-year change lower by 26,000.
The Scottish employment rate for those aged between 16 and 64 years old rose to 75.5% overall, up by 0.5% on the previous quarter.
There were an estimated 2.27 million EU nationals working in the UK in the latest quarter, 61,000 fewer than a year earlier, while the number of non-EU nationals increased by 130,000 to 1.29m.
Under the Department for Work and Pensions “alternative claimant count” measure – stripping out the impact of the universal credit roll-out – the latest monthly total for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is up by 3% at 1,577. The Highland total is also higher by 3% at 3,568.
Youth unemployment in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is up by 9% at 298.
Meanwhile in the Highland area it is higher by 14% at 629.