The North East’s unemployment rate has fallen slightly but there has been a big rise in the number of people opting out of the world of work altogether, new figures show.
The region’s headline unemployment fell slightly to 4.5% between October and December, meaning the North East still had the highest rate of joblessness in the UK, although it now held that unwanted position jointly with London. The national rate of unemployment stayed unchanged at 3.7%.
But there was a big rise in the number of people classed as ‘economically inactive’, which rose to 25.7%, the highest figure seen in the region in more than four years. Taken together, that meant the North East has by far the lowest proportion of working age people in jobs at 71%.
