Youth Unemployment in Chelmsford more than doubles in the last year

15 May 2009

Commenting on his Parliamentary Written Answer from the Employment Minister, Tony McNulty, Simon Burns MP said:

"It is extremely worrying that in the last year the proportion of young people aged between 18 and 24 in the Chelmsford Local Authority area who are unemployed has more than doubled from 2.4% to 5.7%.

"Sadly, this reflects the overall upward trend in unemployment in the Borough and is of particular concern."

Original source; Chelmsford Weekly News.

8:30am Friday 27th March 2009

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JOBSEEKERS in Chelmsford are being hit hard by a lack of new vacancies in the town.

Figures obtained by West Chelmsford MP Simon Burns in Parliament reveal that the number of notified jobs posted to Jobcentre Plus branches in January dropped by almost 400 per cent in just two months.

The number of vacancies has fallen from 1,256 in November 2008 to just 331 in January this year.

The total posted for November was boosted by Christmas store vacancies, but in December there were just 527 notified jobs posted.

Mr Burns said: “Not only has unemployment doubled in Chelmsford over the last twelve months but equally worrying the number of job vacancies notified to Jobcentre Plus has dropped significantly.

“This not only highlights the problems we have with unemployment in Chelmsford but it also reinforces the underlying weakness of the economy because the significant drop in job vacancies means that the opportunities for the unemployed to find alternative employment is restricted.

“I accept that not all job vacancies are notified to Jobcentre Plus but notwithstanding that, the prognosis for an improvement in unemployment levels in Chelmsford in the immediate future is dire.”

A fortnight ago it was revealed that number of people out of work in the town had doubled in less than nine months.

The Office of National Statistics revealed that 2,727 people in the town were unemployed in February, compared with 1,282 in June 2008.