UNEMPLOYMENT RISES TO 2.38 MILLION
… RISES IN REDDITCH HITTING THE OVER 50’S

Karen Lumley today commented on the continued rises in unemployment, the largest quarterly rise since 1981 and called upon this government to wake up and allow people on Job Seekers Allowance to immediately retrain instead of having to wait for six months.

Karen said,

“The total job seekers claimants here in Redditch stands at 2801 which is 5.5% of the workforce compared with 4.1% nationally and more worryingly nationally 5.8% of males are claiming JSA whilst here in Redditch 7.6% of males are claiming.The other alarming statistic is that 21% of the over 50’s in Redditch are claiming JSA compared with a national average of 15.7%. This makes it all the more important to scrap the six months wait before allowing retraining.

We need to get people back into work and retraining would be the first step for many”