“You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live”
Every person is fully aware that in the past week there have been some very bad announcements when it comes to jobs but given that it is a new year January was always going to be a bad month. The big companies were always going to wait until after the holidays to make major announcements. The smaller companies, however, didn’t have the luxury and December saw 16,300 people going onto the live register topping off the highest single year rise on record. A 71% rise in unemployment in 2008.
In order to assess exactly where this country is in terms of unemployment it is worth looking at 2 charts. The first is the number of people on the live register:
The second is the unemployment rate:
Looking simply at the first chart it is clear to see that the amount of people on the dole is shooting up and within the next few weeks it will be at the highest point it has ever been.
Comfort will be taken from the second chart where we can see that as a percentage of the labour force the situation is nowhere near what it has been in the past few decades, at least yet.
Nothing more needs to be said other than keep an eye on these charts through the next few months. They will be the reason behind every other statistic, from house prices through retail sales figures.
