Yorkshire jobless rate nears 1 in 10

Unemployment across the UK hit a new 17-year high of almost 2.7 million yesterday as quarterly figures for the November to January period showed a further 28,000 people are out of work nationwide.

Labour politicians and union leaders said the figures showed Government policy is “driving up unemployment” and called for a change of direction in next week’s Budget.

But Ministers said the figures for 2012 have been more promising, and suggested the situation has already begun to “stabilise.”

Nonetheless, in Yorkshire the new jobless total of 261,000 puts the region’s employment rate at 9.8 per cent, the highest outside of London and the North East.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling admitted Yorkshire still has a “relatively weak” labour market but insisted the situation across the country is starting to improve.

“The headline figure is an increase (in unemployment) of 28,000, but really that takes us back to figures from November,” he said.

“If you look at the comparative headline figures for the last couple of months, actually there’s been a decline.

“So there are some signs of stabilisation – I wouldn’t go any further than that. Only time will tell over the next two or three months whether that continues.”

Mr Grayling said recent announcements of big job losses at organisations such as RBS, Lloyds and Bradford Council were “unwelcome”, but insisted that overall the private sector is now expanding at a faster rate than the public sector contracts.

He was supported by the CBI, who said the “pace of increase has continued to slow”.

But their words did little to placate Labour MPs representing parts of the region where unemployment remains a massive blight on local communities.

Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said that in constituencies such as his own, there is little sign of the private sector stepping in to fill the void as councils and other public bodies continue to shed staff.

“We have not begun to see the full impact of the Government cuts which will slash public sector employment which Rotherham depends upon,” Mr MacShane said. “For every 13 workers who lose their jobs in the public sector, just one private sector job is being created.

“The Government’s anti-growth strategy is hitting the North of England very hard.”

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the rise in unemployment was “disappointing” but insisted the problem was not the fault of the Coalition.

He told the House of Commons that it would be wrong to suggest it was a “problem invented by this Government”, adding that unemployment among women and young people had risen under the Labour administration.

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