Wednesday’s Labour Market Statistics looked good – or rather they looked a little better than the run of bad figures for the last three years. And we welcome them – any improvement is to be welcomed, since every single number is a real person, with a real life. And it is real people who have been carrying the burden of this Coalition Government’s austerity programme for too long.
Unfortunately, as we’ve stressed before, even these apparently improving figures hide very real regional variations.
In our own Constituency of Leeds North West the number of those claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance is up by 12% year on the year to July; people claiming JSA for over a year has risen by 20% in that same period. There’s been no change in the number of 18-24 year olds claiming JSA for over 12 months, and in NW Leeds we’ve seen a shocking 113%…
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Adel and Wharfedale Branch 