Unemployment Up By 4,000 In The North East

12 June 2013, 11:28 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

New stats show unemployment in the North East went up by 4,000 in the three months to April.

The Office for National Statistics showed that a total of 131,000 people were unemployed in the region between February and April.

The region's unemployment rate was 10.1% and saw a rise of 3.2% during the period.

The worst area in the UK was the West Midlands which recorded a 19,000 increase in the number of people without a job.

The number of over-65s in a job has reached a record one million, new figures revealed.

Unemployment has fallen by 5,000 to 2.5 million and the numbers claiming jobseeker's allowance shrank by 8,600 last month to 1.5 million.

A record 29.7 million people are in work after a rise of 24,000 in recent months.

The Office for National Statistics figures also showed that just over a million people over the age of 65 are in work, the highest since records began in 1971.

Almost one in 10 people in the age group are working - 615,000 men and 388,000 women.

Other data disclosed that public sector employment has fallen by 22,000 to just under 5.7 million, the lowest figure since 2001.

Local government employment is 26,000 lower than the end of last year at fewer than 2.5 million. Employment in private firms has increased by 46,000 to 24 million.

The UK's employment rate is now 71.5%, while 7.8% of the population is jobless.

The so-called claimant count has fallen for seven months in a row and has dipped to its lowest total since May 2011.

The fall in unemployment in the quarter to April was entirely due to men finding work, while the number of women out of a job rose by 7,000 to 1.09 million.

Long-term unemployment has also increased, with those looking for work for longer than a year up by 11,000 to almost 900,000.

Youth unemployment - counting those aged between 16 and 24 - has fallen by 43,000 to 950,000.