Unemployment DOWN In The North East

14 March 2012, 09:45 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Unemployment has fallen in the North East by 11,000 in the three months to January - the biggest drop in the country.

The new stats out this morning show 138,000 people are out of a job in the region - compared to 148,000 in the three months to December.

The figures also show that more men than women in the North East are unemployed - 80,000 men aren't working in the North East compared to 58,000 women.

In the same three months of 2010 (November - January) the jobless figure for the region stood at 120,000, meaning there's been an annual increase of 18,000.

Nationally, unemployment went up by 28,000 between November and January.

The figure now stands at 2.67 million - which means 8.4% of the working population doesn't have a job.

Youth unemployment went up by 16,000.

But the number of people IN work increased by 9,000 to 29.1 million.