Unemployment in London has been rising and the number of related benefit claimants has been rising faster than in the UK as a whole, according to new estimates published by the Greater London Authority.
A new labour market update says unemployment among Londoners rose to 6.3% during the third quarter of this year compared with the previous one and that the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or receiving Universal Credit and “searching for work” has got up by 167% since March, representing 309,000 people. The increase for the UK as a whole is 115%.
Londoners in the 25-29 age group have been the hardest hit, with a year-on-year increase of 237%. Every age group in London has seen a larger proportional increase than UK counterparts by this measure, the update says.
The new claimant statistics, which include people in work but on low incomes, show Newham to be the borough with the largest year-on-year change of 18,460 people.
Tottenham, in Haringey, is the third hardest-hit parliamentary constituency, following West Ham and East Ham, the two that lie within Newham. The year-on-year increases in absolute numbers were 9,790 in West Ham, 8,670 in East Ham and 8,660 in Tottenham. The smallest increase, of 1,810, was in Orpington.
The employment rate in London among 16-64 year-olds was an estimated 75.2% in the three months to October, the same as the UK as a whole, though the the fall of 1.4 percentage points on the previous quarter was greater. The North East of England saw the biggest percentage point fall – 2.1 percentage points.
London is estimated to have experienced the largest fall in the number of employed people in contains of any of the UK’s nations and regions, with 213,800 of the 819,200 drop in the number of employees in the UK as a whole between February and November this year being in the capital.
Workforce change has been particularly marked in the arts and entertainment sector, the accommodation and food industries, and in construction.
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