Unemployment falls across the region

THE number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) fell last month across the East Midlands.

Nearly 700 fewer people claimed in July than in June, with 45,218 people in the region receiving JSA.

The figure was 7% lower than last year, which has fallen at twice the UK average, where the number of JSA claimants is down 3.4% over the last 12 months.

Scott Knowles, chief executive of East Midlands Chamber, which covers Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, said: “These figures remain very positive and show that, despite the uncertainty leading up to the referendum, businesses continued to recruit in the months before the vote and immediately afterwards during July.

“Much of this recruitment will have been planned before the referendum and there have been reports claiming recruitment has fallen since the vote so next month’s figures will probably be the first real indication of how businesses reacted to the vote to leave the EU.”

Nationally the fall last month ended four consecutive months of, albeit relatively small, increases. There were 763,586 JSA claimants in July in the UK.