The North East has recorded the largest fall in unemployment in the UK over the last year, despite seeing a small rise in the rate of people out of work in latest figures.
Monthly figures released today show that the region’s unemployment had risen 0.1% from last month’s record low to stand at 4.2%. That was above the national average of 3.8%, but the North East no longer has its long term position of the worst unemployment rate in the country, with higher figures in both London and the West Midlands.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the North East has had the largest increase in the employment rate over the last year, with the figure up by 2.9 percentage points. The region has also seen the largest fall of unemployment over that period (down 1.1 percentage points) and the largest decrease in economic activity (down (2.2 percentage points).
