Civil service hope to ease jobs stagnation

Unemployment has remained flat across the Fylde coast despite national figures for June showing a record number of people in work.
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But staff at local Jobcentres have said vacancies locally are coming up and a series of schemes to help people find work are to be run.

Nationally, 1.65 million people were unemployed, down 201,000 compared with a year ago, giving a jobless rate of 4.9 per cent – the lowest since the summer of 2005.

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The employment rate reached a record high of 74.4 per cent, with 31.7 million people in work of some kind.

In the Blackpool North and Cleveleys constituency 1,430 were claiming work age benefits ,the same rate as last year.

In Blackpool South the figure was 2,040, 0.2 per cent up on the same month last year.

Fylde’s figure was 615 claimants, 0.1 per cent up, Lancaster and Fleetwood was 930, 0.1 per cent up, while Wyre and Preston North was 360, unchanged on last year.

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Karl Worsley from Blackpool’s Jobcentre Plus said 20 more people had become benefits claimants in the area since the previous month.

He said: “We have been really busy with a number of new jobs coming in. We have just had a woman who runs care homes come to us today and ask us to put on a jobs information day in the next few weeks as she is looking to recruit. We have been working with a local training provider on sector-based work academies to get people trained up for the workplace.

“In the coming months we will be working with the DWP on recruitment for the Personal Independence Payments programme.

“They will be looking to recruit around 50 staff in August and a further recruitment in September. We are going to run some sessions in the Job Centre on civil service recruitment, to show what it takes to get a career in the civil service and about helping people assess the skills they have got, the things they have done while in employment and recording those transferable skills to help get a new job.”