Unemployment Statistics - I am now a number, not a free man

The UK unemployment rate has remained at 8.4%, the highest level since 1995 according to the latest figures published today.

There were 2.67m unemployed people, up 48,000 on the quarter, the statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

The increase in unemployment however, has been the slowest since last June according to analysts. Heather Stewart writes today:

Analysts pointed out that the increase in unemployment was the slowest since last June, when the jobs market was deteriorating sharply, after improving through much of 2010.

Alan Clarke, of Scotiabank, said: "If there was any doubt that the UK economy had turned the corner and that the worst news was in the past, then today's labour report should lay those concerns to rest."

Youth unemployment has continued to rise - the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in the three months to December 2011 was 22.2%. Described last month as a 'a record high' the number of unemployed 16 to 24 year olds has remained at 1.04m although there has been an increase of 22,000 from the three months to September 2011.

Full article HERE

The South West, the region of the UK I currently reside, starts at number 487 of the list that The Guardian kindly posted up for all to read.

According to statistics, I am currently 1 in 96,083 people that are unemployed in my region which only constitutes 2.9% of the total unemployed within the UK. Once again, how very depressing.

I noticed an odd trend while browsing through the statistics in that the percentage of unemployed men seems to be higher than unemployed women (at least around the South West, admittedly the main focus of my browsing). That doesn't mean anything to me, but it might to somebody else.

I remember reading reports and articles that men were now less likely to go into education or other forms of care, and I wonder if maybe there are more educational or daycare centres in the South West than there are in the rest of the UK?

I doubt that, but I'll stick to that until someone comes up with a better explanation (more men in the South West to tend to the farms seems overly ignorant of the large number of female farmers, which is why I didn't go with that one).

I find there is very little I can comment on at the moment other than how terribly depressing it is to read about just how many people in my local area are unemployed. It gives me an idea of just how many applicants there must be to the positions that I apply for, and perhaps gives me a better understanding of just why it is that I rarely get any interviews for these positions.

There's nothing like statistics to get your hopes up, right?